


It's Not Over

by cthulhu_is_chaotic_good



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Captive, Gen, Revenge, Russia is a harsh country for American spies, Russian Mafia, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 57,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12974988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthulhu_is_chaotic_good/pseuds/cthulhu_is_chaotic_good
Summary: Four years have passed since Scorpia Rising, and Alex has taken a job with a private American  security company. He has his life  under control for a while, and has no intentions of going back to his life with MI6. But with the reappearance of someone from Alex's past, his control is starting to slip...





	1. Change and Continuity

**Author's Note:**

> -Posted originally on Fanfiction.net, but I can’t remember the login info I used for this story over there.  
> -Everything in this first chapter was first posted in 2013. I did a few minor edits, typos and a couple language tightens, but it's mostly the exact same story.
> 
> This fic has some graphic language, a lot of indecision from a few major characters, has spoilers for all books through Russian Roulette, and relies on smoothing over some inconsistencies between the books.
> 
> For example, in Russian Roulette, ages don't quite add up. And Yassen says the last time he sees John is way before Albert Bridge, and yet there's no mention of the extraction scene where Ash is stabbed in the stomach and nearly dies. (Not to mention one larger plot hole that really doesn't make sense with Yassen's final words...) Slopping writing, Horowitz. Still better than mine I'm sure though.

" **Nobody and nothing will stop Russia on the road to strengthening democracy and ensuring human rights and freedoms."** **–** **Vladimir Putin**

Rain pounded on the pavement; Alex moved beneath the garden gazebo. When creating times for outdoor meetings, perhaps it was a smart idea to bring the weather into account?

Voices came closer, and through the thick rain dark figures could be seen moving through the gloomy gardens. Alex stepped further back into the shadows offered by the gazebo. Tripping backwards, he reached a hand back to steady himself.

_Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out._

He was anticipating the showdown. He felt hollow. He was terrified.

It had been a long, long time. Time enough that he could no longer remember, really, the man’s voice, or graceful manner. But time would not erase his eyes, staring across a rooftop for the first time. _Yassen Gregorovich._

-AR-

"Alex! Open up, Alex; Mum and Dad are worried about you. You can't just leave school like that; you could have been killed for all we knew. Alex, Alex!" Sabina pounded on her friend's door, harried but not overly desperate now that she knew he was here. No killer would take the time to perfect Alex's way of casually slinging his bag onto the crowded kitchen table without disturbing anything and then replicate it perfectly.

"Hold on a minute Sab," a muffled voice replied. She took a step back and crossed her arms, impatiently tapping her foot. True to word, a moment later the nearly silent  _click_ of an unlocked door sounded, and the door was pushed outward.

Sabina stepped into the white room and looked around. Alex had apparently left school after first period that day, and Mum had gotten a call from the office. She'd thought initially it was just a panic attack, but just one cursory look around the room was enough to confirm suspicions of another, darker purpose.

The room was a normal teenage boy's room (even if it clearly belonged to an English boy in an American house) – a few Chelsea posters, a half filled bookcase with a few trophies hazardly strewn across the shelves, dark blue bedcovers neatly tucked into a bed, and on a sturdy wooden desk an old photograph of three people. From what she knew of the scene, it was his Uncle Ian, housekeeper Jack, and a younger Alex at a lake house in western France.

The room didn't have much of a personality, but neither did a great many teenagers. To the lazy eye there would have been indication of the hardships Alex had undergone nearly a year prior. Even a detective that had examined the scene would have been hard-pressed to find any remotely suspicion items unless they had access to the small metal safe in the corner of his closet. A passport with his identification papers could have then pinpointed Alex as a British citizen, ) a gun would have seemed a bit odd for a sixteen year old teen to have, and a few medals (which had been earned collectively by John Rider, his brother, and his son, on a photo album full of long gone people would have been at the very least a sad sight.

And now there was an open suitcase on the bed, already half filled with clothes in various shades of forest camouflage. As Sabina watched, mouth gaping, Alex tossed a few books and cleared out his safe into the suitcase.

"Wha- where are you going?" She demanded, after mustering control of her voice. "I suppose now you're telling me you've had enough of our nice, easy, safe life in America and are going back to get killed?"

"Back to Britain? Not likely," Alex dismissed. His tone was intentionally light, but didn’t distract Sab from what he'd said.

"But you're leaving us? Back to the spy game?"

"Sabina, this isn't working. You've known that for a while," he started. It was true; Alex's regression toward his former spy self might have flown over the heads of the Pleasure parents, but Sabina had noticed.

"Of course it is!" She'd noticed, but that didn't stop Sabina from attempting to stop it. On the outside, Alex had acted just as he had for the past half year: well adjusted, social, head of the soccer team and even (though Sab wasn't as fond of this part) beginning to date again. Emotionally, Alex had begun to withdraw to his initial post Jack days. He'd skipped three parties in a row, had stopped having friends over for the weekend, told Kelly that he needed some time off from the relationship, and had thrown himself into his studies with renewed vigor. But that wasn't all. His karate attendance had gone up until it seemed he would be ready for his next dan three years too early. He'd gone shooting with Jackson and came back looking happier than in the past month combined.

"No, it isn't." Sabina began to protest and Alex signed, falling back onto the bed. "Don't lie. I wasn't meant for this type of life."

"So you're going to go work for the governments that abused you?" Her glare might have stronger effect if tears weren't beginning to pool under her eyes, because you can't stop a Rider that's made up his mind."

"No, Sab, listen to me, I promise I'm not going to get hurt. I've been emailing a man I met with the CIA ages ago, and he left government work last year to create a private company invested in the business. I can't tell you the name or many details, really I'm not supposed to tell you any, but think of it like a guarding company. He's making a ton of money, and we've been talking to government people to get it cleared so I can work there even though I'm only sixteen because I've done a ton of stuff worse than this in my life, and the paperwork and permission finally came through," Alex ran through the words, occasionally tripping in his rush to be heard before Sabina zoned him out. This was the part he'd been dreading the most, but he couldn't just let the opportunity pass him by and sit back in school watching the world pass him by. He was a Rider.

"Anyway," he coughed, clearly his through, "It's like a security company. Mostly it's a lot of staking out possible criminals, guarding things, and taking on contracts for things the government doesn't want to or can't quite do."

"So killing people? Putting people in prisons outside of US waters and torturing them?" Her voice was numb, and Alex couldn't help but flash back to a time when she sat crying in a cell asking for Alex to save them from Cray.

"Not torturing people. But stopping  them, Sabina. There are dangerous criminals out there. Terrorists that want to hurt you, and your mum, and your dad, and everyone we go to school with, and…"

"I get it." Sabina looked down at the floor, refusing to meet Alex's eyes.  _He'd been through this, how could he just agree to do this as a career?_ She wasn't going to cry. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

"I'm not running away, Sabina. I just need to be packed and at the airport by eleven. I'd still leave my room as it was, and visit Christmas and time off…if you and your parents wanted."

"Of course we want you around Alex, we just – you can't keep – this isn't fair!" Sabina turned around and walked towards her room, softly slamming the door on her way in.  _Don't cry don't cry don't cry._

She lay on her bed, silently not crying, and listened as her parents found Alex and they talked. An hour later Alex popped in to say goodbye; she kept her head shoved into her pillow. She refused to look up, and eventually Alex left. Her mum came in shortly and sat with Sabina, stroking her hair and silently reassuring her that he would be fine as Mr. Pleasure drove Alex to the airport.

-AR-

Alex had been true to his word. He hadn't gotten hurt. He started off with upper level benefits (health care, top pay, free training in a variety of necessary skills, homework help) and an apartment near their Washington D.C. headquarters.

Most of the jobs were low danger: guard an armored truck or important person, go to a country where the US military tried to avoid and receive information, track relatively stable criminals. A few risky jobs had come and gone with little significant damage. Stopping a plot to kill the president, tracked down an Iranian bomber in the war recovering country of Sri Lanka, rescuing a diplomat’s wife from a Mexican cartel hiding in California; these came in about once a month (since the company, although young, had quickly developed a reputation and notable contacts) and were usually completed in a few days.

None of the men on the staff knew Alex's age, or his previous experience. He had been introduced as a military genius of young stature, and was generally regarded as about 21. Since most men in the company were hired men that worked half the year (generally deployed in the company's more long term contracts – working in Iraq as a mercenary was one notable job the US government usually passed off to independent contractors instead of their men), Alex really only knew a few well. Two other men – Carter, the one who had recruited him, and Hyde, a co-founder of the company-   knew his true age and previous experience.

He'd joined a local soccer team, and made most of the games.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other big US holidays he visited the Pleasures. Sabina had graduated with flying colors, and was now off to the University of Chicago.

On his 17th birthday Alex tested for a high school diploma and passed easily. He then flew to Pakistan and held his ground in a Mexican standoff.

And six moths after his 18th birthday, when Alex had been officially taking a month off to consider a couple of positions offered by internal affairs and consider other options, a case came in that called his name.

-AR-

Alex glanced at the telecommunication device in his hand. No warning red lights were showing, which meant everyone was in their place and ready to take down the criminals.

Russia was supposed to be freezing at the best of times in winter, but September was barely fall. If not for the gazebo roof over his head, the rain would be chilling to the bone. The sopping wet clothes weren't helping either.

He raised the binoculars to his eyes. The man who had known about the deal from the inside, the defector now comfily provided for by the American government as they waited for the trail, had provided coordinates about fifty feet from where Alex was standing. They had already bugged the bushes near the coordinates, and Sylvester would be listening in the van, waiting to give them the go. Hopefully the rain wouldn't interfere with their devices; water never had before but it was raining fairly intensely.

Maybe the people who planned this meeting had checked the weather first. It was technically a public park, so rain would keep the public away – though in reality the side of town this was on discouraged people from hanging out in public for too long when it could be avoided. And if nothing else, gangsters up to no good would be easy to spot—they’d be the only ones around.

On the other hand, maybe not. Alex squinted through the binoculars, trying to make out the figures through the dark. Even the lamps did little to alleviate the blackness. The outlines of shrubs and statues were in the way, and only two out of possibly four heads could be seen over a rather inconveniently placed large shrub.

A blue light began to flash on and off erratically on Alex's modified cell phone. He shoved it into his pocket and set off running, a gun materializing in his hand.

Even through the darkness, about ten black shapes could be seen running toward the illicit deal.

-AR-

Alex wasn't sure why he was so surprised at the news. Gregorovich was alive. MI6 had lied.

They had lied about a lot of things.

Yassen  _had_  died. That was eventually made clear after all the searches they put through returned. Died for a moment, then shocked back to life by the emergency crew immediately after Air Force One had crashed. He'd entered a coma for a year, and then was broken out by what appeared to be the last remnants of Scorpia a week after he'd woken up. Half a year after Jack had died Yassen was out and free, recovering his life half a year after Alex had abandoned his own.

Alex might have felt conflicted upon the news of Yassen's death after the news was broken, but no more. People had died because of Yassen. Had died because of Alex's involvement with Scorpia after Yassen's message. Ian was dead and Jack was dead and Yassen was alive.

It was ironic, in a sick twisted way. All those years ago, on top of a helipad in central London, Alex had made a promise.

_Someday I'll kill you._

And now Alex was getting the chance again, and for not the first time he was hesitating. Yassen had come back to life in a plot devised by the devil just for Alex to have a chance at revenge, and Alex wasn't even sure that was what he wanted.

Yassen needed to be off the streets. Preferably dead. But did it really matter who killed him? It wouldn't bring Ian back.

That was what Alex thought when he went to bed after reading through all of the files. He sat on his bed, flipping through a photo journal of people in his life compiled by Sabina. His parents at their wedding day, Alex being born, Ash standing in a wedding photo, Ian and baby Alex, Jack; it had been too painful initially, but at sixteen he'd sworn to Sabina that he wasn't going to push away his earlier memories just because they were painful.

And then he'd called Sabina. Years of deceit yielded wonders when it came to Alex's verbal lying ability, and he'd chatted lightly about his last soccer game, an episode of Doctor Who Sabina and her new boyfriend had loved, and their idea for a new blockbuster movie. College was great, Sabina told him, and meanwhile Alex was shivering and thinking about Sabina staring defiantly at Cray as Yassen said nothing.

He'd gone to sleep, the issue weighing heavier than he'd care to admit.

Alex had woken up and sworn to torture Gregorovich in every conceivable painful manner until he was begging for death.

Now…now Alex wasn't even sure. But he had a job, paid for the US government, and he hadn't spent the better part of two years on the job to slip up now that it personal.

-AR-

Yassen Gregorovich was a brilliant man when it came to surviving; no one would deny that. He'd been taught by the best. After being rescued, it had taken him two days to catch roughly up to speed. After seeing a doctor, securing his accounts and gathering new identification papers, he disappeared off the map. What was left of Scorpia had razed in Israel two weeks later in a joint effort between four nations' intelligence agencies and the US Navy Seals.

A month later he emerged as a private contractor once again, fully healed and up to date on the latest criminal activity. In approximately two and half years he had acquainted himself with the teeming Russian underworld and established himself enough that to take him on was inconceivable.

Two months ago Gregorovich had taken a relatively easy job as the assistant to a cartel boss. A cartel boss that was now planning on buying the formula to a new drug from a formerly renowned US pharmacist named Gabe Rousseau.

And now Alex Rider and company were under contract to destroy the new drug formula and take Rousseau to the CIA. Gregorovich and his boss (assuming he showed in person, which was doubtful) were a bonus.

Operations in Russia were tricky. National sovereignty was their thing, and heaven help any group that transgressed upon that most valuable of a principle. Hell helping you would be a step up from the nightmare awaiting guilty parties. Russia was the last of the 20 biggest world economies to join the World Trade Organization because they dislike working with others, and their entire international policy could be best summed up as "sure we're bad, but the rest of the West is worse."

In other words, complete the assignment, get out, and pretend it never happened. No wonder the CIA wanted nothing to do with it.

-AR-

Alex ran in pace with most of the others. He would have arrived in time if a stray shrub hadn't tripped him. He pulled himself up in a matter of seconds, but his phone had dropped and he was already behind the others. It would be ok, he reassured himself as he searched for his phone on the ground, completely blind and plastered wet. The circle wouldn't miss him.

"Freeze! Hands up in the air and drop all of your weapons. We are armed and we will shoot!" Bill yelled. English was the language of business, and it was assumed that all of these men were perfectly able to talk "business".

Scarcely a second had passed before the sound of bullets being fired filled the air.

Alex ran up to fill in his place in the circle, a few seconds late. A bullet streamed past, so close he could feel its trail. He returned fire without pause.

Dead silence filled the air. Two bodies lay on the ground, neither of them from Alex's side.

The fight was over practically before it began – the two remaining men were handcuffed, their stuff taken, and the entire procession entered a nearby building in haste. Everything was happening in fast forward in Alex's head. The prisoners were promptly locked into a room with no door on the inside. Two men on Alex's team had been injured; neither seriously. Jackson had a bullet in his left shoulder, and he sat down with the best medic of the group to have it looked at. DC had a twisted ankle which he was taking care of.

Harris called Sylvester in the van to arrange transportation and body disposal while the rest of the men sat down to play a game of cards. Harris had the drug formula in an open briefcase in front of him.

Alex sat down.  _Breathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out._  Everything seemed to be passing in a blur. He knew what two prisoners they had – Yassen and the American. Apparently one – or both – had brought a guard or two.

He had to see him. Had to know he was really alive. Maybe had to kill him.

It had been a long time since Alex had felt so out of control.

Everyone was used to Alex's presence; everyone was immersed in their own activity. And so although one or two of the other members of their team might have noticed Alex walk towards the door that held the prisoners inside, no one noticed enough to call him on it.

Alex keyed in the code, and the room. His heart was beating faster than it had since Jack had died and he couldn't think.

And so Alex walked into a room with unsecured prisoners, holding a gun loosely in his hand, and shut the door that trapped him inside without thinking. And a second later the gun was twisted from his hand, pressed against his head, and he finally got the evidence they had been seeking.

Yassen Gregorovich was very much alive.

~TBC~


	2. Reunion

 

"" **One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god"" – Jean Rostand**

The gun was pressed none to gently into Alex's head. In the complete darkness that engulfed the two prisoners and Alex, he wasn't sure he wanted to chance speaking – a bullet aimed for his knee as a threat might be spurred into motion before Yassen heard who his captive was. If Yassen didn't already know. If Yassen even wanted Alex alive, let alone in the near vicinity.

Seconds of agonizing inner turmoil and adrenaline passed in silence, before a slightly rough voice spoke in an all too familiar voice.

"You will known on the cell door in front of you until one of your associates opens it. You will not try to break free, and you will not talk. Begin knocking if you understand."

Alex cautiously knocked on the metal door, cursing himself for his stupidity while wondering whether Yassen had realized.

"Louder."

Banging loudly on the door, Alex tried to run through all of the disarming moves he had practiced in his lifetime, not that he supposed any would work.

Muffled voices outside of the door became clearer as they moved closer, and a nudge of the gun was all Alex needed to hit almost as hard as he could. He was about to resort to using Morse code when the door swung open, the light blinding.

"We have guns aimed at you – oh."

Blinking against the sudden onset of light, Alex felt Yassen's hand firmly grab him by the neck with his left hand. The gun was almost painfully pressed into his skull.

"What are your demands?" Harris asked calmly. This wasn't a new position, although hostage situations were rare. Two other men with guns and serious faces stared blankly at Alex. Attempting to glance backwards Alex saw the American prisoner in handcuffs. Another pair lay on the ground where the killer  must have broken free.

"I will be leaving, as will Mr. Rousseau and the drug formula. All of the members of your group will move into this room, and I will take two prisoners with me. He," Yassen shook Alex (surely he knew by now? He had to know by now)," will stay with me for several days to ensure neither Mr. Rousseau or myself is tracked. The other will be released after we have driven for several hours and he can come and release you all. This is not negotiable; I suggest you begin to gather your men."

"We have no assurances you will carry through on this bargain, and we do have several agents undergoing medical procedures currently. I think we need to look at this closely."

The seemingly casual glance Harris threw at Alex could have meant anything, but at this moment it seemed to scream how could Alex just abandon all of his training to go mess with the highly dangerous prisoners. He glanced down, feeling fourteen and alone again. The kind of person that would abandon his training to emotion – chasing down terrorist groups and joining them with a little manipulation – had no place on a team with men that depended upon you having their back.

"You could kill me now, if you are not satisfied with the deal," Yassen said coolly. "Unfortunately, you would certainly lose your young friend instantly, and possibly one or two more in the process. I suggest you put your guns down slowly and find me the drug formula and the key to Mr. Rousseau's handcuffs."

"Consider this carefully for a moment. You have killed several people, but there is no need to add to that amount. This is our youngest member, still a kid, and you would be responsible for his death. There is still time for you to reform, and possibly even sent back to Russia in a prisoner transfer. If you confessed and told about your business dealings, we could certainly cut a deal."

Surely the mention that he was young, still a kid, had to clinch it? Alex wasn't sure which he was more terrified of – Yassen knowing now and planning ahead or finding out after his team was locked up. He had no doubts that it would come to that – Harris cared too much to straight out allow Yassen to kill him. Yassen wasn’t about to be bowed down by psychological gesturing to his captive’s personhood – Alex would be leaving, and now.

"I have no desire to wait around while pretending to fall prey to your arguments, so I suggest you get moving. This is not a warning; I will shoot your youngest member here in the knee if this takes more than five minutes. I am sparing your lives, do not try to bargain down.

"Mr. Gregorovich, it is not within my authority to allow you to leave these premises but I am sure we could work out an advantageous arrangement for both parties."

Faster than even Alex was expecting, Yassen tipped the gun's barrel upwards and fired, narrowly skimming the top of Alex's hair.

"That was a warning shot – you will not kill me because you want your friend to survive, so follow my orders and see that he does. From now on it will be him suffering any injury caused by your lack of participation."

Yassen, pushing Alex along with him, and Rousseau, holding his handcuffed hands stiffly in front of him, moved outside of the cell door. Harris reluctantly and slowly began to usher people into the cell. As they walked, DC limping with his twisted ankle, into the cell most of them carefully avoided looking in Alex's direction. His cheeks flared; it wasn't fair.

Harris unlocked the American's hands, and then showed the American the entire area to prove that no one was hiding away. Yassen had all of the weapons dumped outside of the cell door, and then Harris was roughly shoved inside. Rousseau held up the drug formula and nodded to show it was the real thing, with his other hand slightly lifting a briefcase presumably filled with money.

"Any volunteers?" Rousseau asked nervously of the men, glancing at Yassen to see if this met with approval. Harris started to walk forward at the same time as Brandon, and Yassen indicated with the gun for Brandon to come forward.

The light was turned on, per Harris's haggling, so that Jackson could finish having the bullet in his shoulder removed, and a couple bottles of water were tossed inside. The door was shut, and Yassen led the way outside, leading Alex with the hand on his shoulder that hadn't been removed since the cell. It was almost suffocating him as they walked through the rain.

Yassen hadn't looked at him once, and he  _had to know._ Was he just taking Alex so he could shoot him when they were out of ear range? Was he going to be tortured for information? Butterflies were multiplying in his stomach at an alarming rate, and hearing Brandon's shoes behind him didn't help.

He had failed, he had let down the team. Failure, immaturity. Sure, Yassen didn't know about Sylvester in the team's van, so the team wasn't in any danger, but what about Brandon? The man had a sister he was putting through college and a mom battling alcoholism. What would his sister do if Brandon was killed? No one deserved that except Alex for his stupidity.

Or Yassen for his unspeakable crimes against humanity, but somehow Alex couldn't bring himself to blame the cold blooded killer he let out for being a stone cold killer in response.

In the dark and freezing cold, rainy weather a car was located and turned on. The back door was opened and the light flickered on and off, deciding within seconds that off was the best option. Alex was shoved in the seat, his left wrist was handcuffed and his arm twisted back to behind the head of the seat. Rousseau, on the Russian's orders, reached past the teenager's head to lift up the seat head, revealing the metal extensions. The handcuff was weaved around one of the steel columns and the remaining cuff snapped around his right wrist. In the front passenger seat Brandon underwent the same process. Finally the doors were slammed shut on the two prisoners, finally granting some respite from the harsh rain.

Alex realized his teeth were chattering quietly and clamped his jaw shut as the captors got into their seats. The engine revved to life with a loud rattle before settling down, and the heat was turned on high as the car roared into the streets. The darkness might have prevented sight (but not silent misery or havokked meltdowns) but the car was clearly a cheap model.

The journey was quiet: the weak beeping of the turn signal was the only break in stillness. After the first half hour the radio was turned on to Russian classical and remained for another hour before the car pulled over at a cheap gas station in the middle of nowhere. A slight trickle was all that was left of the previous rain. Yassen turned off the car and the engine collapsed with an exhale of relief. Leaving the three of them huddled in the car, he walked off into the convenience store. The American, if his breathing was to be believed, was panicking more than Alex and Brandon combined. He took short breaths and gasps, and the silent prayers could almost be heard dying on his lips.

He'd been a pharmacist, the teen remembered from his skimming of the file. Invented a drug then made a deal with a Russian mob leader, and now he was at the same mercy as Brandon and Alex. Lack of mercy, more likely. He could replicate the drug, it would almost be expected for the Russian assassin to kill him and despose of the body quickly.

Yassen climbed back into the drivers seat. There was no attempt to turn on the car, and the faint glow radiating from his seat indicated a cell phone and texting – was that what mob bosses did now? Text? Alex was tied up with screaming shoulders due the position and Yassen was (probably) texting his boss instead of just hurrying them to their doom.

And now you're inwardly snapping at the man that controls whether you live or die due to minor pain. You aren't a mental case, Alex, you're just trying really hard to be, he chasticed himself mentally.

Five minutes later the car was in motion again, but Alex couldn't help the ominous feeling that the texting was just cementing a bad fate.

Twenty minutes passed in torture until the car pulled over in a long, abandoned stretch of the road. Thick forest loomed over the car. Yassen walked to the passengers seat and let Brandon out, before calling Rousseau out. Alex strained his body into the best position to see what was happening. He could guess – Rousseau had left the money and the recipe on the seat next to Alex, and what real reason did Yassen have to let agents that almost killed him live?

They were behind the car now, and in the Alex's shoulders forced him to give up. He glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the glint of a gun. Brandon couldn't die – it wasn't fair!

"Stop!" Alex screamed, at the same time a loud bang punctuated the air. A body fell, and in the mirror he could see Brandon still standing.

"Please, stop!" Alex kicked the car door as loud as he could, hoping to make a scene – dear God he felt like himself three years ago – powerless to stop a good man die. All he could do was scream and cry, behaving like a four year old without a lollipop.

The people behind the car took no notice of him, and after a minute Alex stopped, defeated. Yassen wasn't going to stop killing because of Alex – he might kill Brandon just to torture Alex. Who know the mind of an undead assassin. And God help Alex if for some reason Yassen didn't know who his captive was. It had been almost four years, and it had been dark, and Yassen hadn't looked at him once, and he had to look like John more than ever now but Sabina had also said he was growing to look like his mom a lot more after she'd made the photo album.

Alex opened his eyes – he'd been almost unaware that he'd closed them. Yassen was alone now – where was the bang?

Twisting and turning frantically to try to glance more of the mirror, eventually Alex could almost make out a dark figure dissappearing into the night. Almost – what if he was imagining it? There are plenty of ways to die besides being shot, plenty of methods to kill that utilize only hands and some handcuffs.

Yassen's silhoutte was still outside, arms crossed and leaning against the back of the car. Alex's heart began to beat a thousand thumps a minute , his hands clenched tightly together. He wasn't thinking about Brandon or his guilt anymore, he was just terrified. More terrified than he would have been if Yassen had simply shot Brandon. Two years of experience and it hadn't beaten pure terror when it came to dealing with cold blooded killers who had him tied up. Unpredictable assassins were even worse.

Terror reached a maximum and stayed there as minutes ticked by. Eventually Yassen turned and approached Alex's side of the car. Alex shrunk into the seat, nevermind his burning shoulders.

The door scraped open in an echo of Alex’s fear. Alex froze.

"Alex."

 Swallowing heavily, unable to tell from the voice or the dimly lit face staring down at him exactly how much trouble he was in, Alex searched for the appropriate response.

“It’s been a while.”

There was no emotion on Yassen’s face.

So this wasn’t a long awaited reunion. Alex could maybe go somewhere from that.

"Where's Brandon?" Alex leaned out of the car to gaze down the road, searching for traces of a soldier silhouetted. 

 "Gone." Yassen didn't expand his answer. He reached for Alex's hands, pulled them towards him, and removed the handcuffs. “He was no use to me dead.”  

“The American—”

"Dead.” Yassen moved to swing open the passenger seat. “Move here. I want you where I can see you.”

Alex climbed out into the cool night air and glanced around. Brandon had disappeared completely, and Rousseau's foot stuck out from behind the tire. "You aren't going to dispose of the body?"

Ignoring the comment, Yassen impatiently tapped the passenger door. “In."

If Alex climbed into the front door without complaints, he could be sealing his fate. "No."

Yassen looked at Alex coolly for a second, leaving Alex to consider the merits of thinking before speaking.

"Yes. Now, I would suggest, before I return to handcuffs and gags."

"That would look suspicious to anyone that passed us."

"Perhaps. If you want to stall for another minute, we can test this theory."

"Where are we going?"

Yassen stepped forward and with one smooth motion shoved Alex in and handcuffed his left arm to the steel head rest extension. Alex buckled his seat belt without further protest.

Yassen climbed in the other side. The motor drummed alive under the assassin’s

"Where are we going?"

Moments passed in silent response. Heart thudding, Alex wondered for the millionth time if he would feel anything when the bullet came. _Idiot._ Why had in a million simulations of this meeting in his head had he never imagined himself defenseless and Yassen with a gun? He’d run through what he would say – _I hate you, I_ _’_ _m going to kill you, Why didn_ _’_ _t you find me, Why couldn_ _’_ _t you just die the first time, Did you care that you sent me to be almost killed, Did you care that Ian was John_ _’_ _s brother, This is all your fault, Why did you have to stab Ash_ _–_ but what would Yassen say? Nothing, going off this. Alex had forgotten how few words the man had said each time they’d met. Possibly he had the same questions and answers for Alex’s father – Why did you leave me, why did you lie to me – but Alex couldn’t answer them any more than Yassen could. So what was left? Revenge? John was dead. Killing Alex couldn’t improve that situation.  (It couldn’t _hurt_ Yassen’s situation either, a mutinous voice whisperd).  

Yassen’s answer came so much later that Alex almost forgot his question. "Where I am going is not relevant to your current situation. Where you are going has yet to be decided."

Alex shivered; he knew the assassin noticed. Still, there was always time for bravado. "Breakfast would be nice.”

 

 

~TBC~

 


	3. Conscience

**"Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies." -Jane Austen**

Every year spies are found browsing in the agencies and communities of foreign countries; most of the time they make it back alive. This survival rate has been bolstered by the fact that neutral countries are often too weak to reasonably expect to survive larger powers when they execute their spies, and larger nations will expect favors in return. Israel is one of the few nations that does occasionally execute spies, though they usually give an excuse along the lines of "it was the heat of the moment when it happened; sorry guys."

Last year Russia and the US exchanged spies as a show of good faith, an act that rarely succeeded during the days of the Communist bloc. The Russian spy, Anna Chapman, became an instant celebrity. Putin welcomed her with open arms; clearly Russia had nothing to regret when caught in the espionage act.

In the modern world, the Cold War was more of the norm than open fighting. Most of the time secret agents returned to their home nation, almost all of them bearing no physical signs of strain. Missing fingers were uncommon.

But these were spies caught by government agents in a world where news was instant and governments held responsible. These were government agents officially paid by governments, not a spy working for a private company that officially had no authority to work the case. Assassins hired by mobsters were unlikely to be as kind.

-AR-

Beethoven descended upon the quiet of the car and broke through it, disturbing troubled thoughts as the car glided into the outskirts of a small city. Alex was asleep in the passenger seat but the absence of one troubled conscience had not settled the turmoil.

To an observer the driver stared blankly ahead, occasionally moving his head inches in order to weave in and out of the trucks dotting the highway. To an observer with access to top secret files the man in the front seat was an untroubled assassin making his way to the man holding the paycheck. Possibly a disposal site would be stopped at along the road; if the assassin was feeling particularly human perhaps the stop would be relocated towards a hospital specializing in amnesiacs (which a few choice chemical mixtures could easily produce out of the strongest minded individuals).

Internally, many thoughts were swirling and Alex was the least of them. Years ago, Alex had been a close enough mirror to a young John Rider that no one could deny the resemblance. But John Rider was an ex-military double agent, and he looked the part of a man trying to blend in. Alex looked like a young military recruit, albeit with longer hair than most national armies would normally allow. Alex's resemblance to John could be pushed aside. Or it could just have been the selfishness inherent to an undead assassin that pushed the kid out of his mind. (As any purveyor of military films – or Star Wars – can say, a kid is no longer a child but certainly a young – and often heroic, following the script of Star Wars – adult with nothing to his name except his name and a sense of righteousness that time will wear down).

Three years ago Yassen had meant to retire, but calling in favors and making deals to cement new identities had meant he was no longer afforded the luxury when he woke up from one series of haunted dreams. Now Alex was back again, yet again coinciding with a chance at retirement, but Yassen was not entirely sure he desired it this time.

The Cold War had been a long, harsh period throughout the world. For an orphaned child in the Soviet Union, it had been harsher. Prostitution, drugs, and crime ran rampant through the street (often while screaming names at the freezing beggar children littering it) and the authorities paid more attention to stopping capitalistic soda companies from setting up shop and sending men to the moon.

There were men in Vietnam facing down guns every day that would take their fate over what Yassen and other beggars were forced to do to survive while competing with each other for those awful fates.

And now it was possible that in a few years Yassen would be in a position to peacefully acquire the job of mob boss from his current employer and make a steady living off what many would say was continuing the abuse of thousands of children annually.

Yassen disagreed. Even in modern Russia where crime was becoming almost illegal, mob bosses still had more authority than most politicians. It would not be the first time that men in a position of exploitation would instead help the community and its children. Drug runners and druggies would die and continue in circles of abuse regardless of any outside event, but Yassen could live a protected life for a few years as mobster while setting away a small fortune then peacefully retire after playing the same role as a philanthropic bastard as Carnegie had in America a century ago.

As for Alex…perhaps it was time he learned to face the consequences of his actions.

-AR-

The forest was frigid and existed in shades of gray; many men having jogged for 15 miles while hungry, tired, and worried would have collapsed against a scrub by now. But the road remained completely empty of both headlights and wild life, and Brandon was no ordinary man. He had been with the Navy Seals for two years before a shot in the thigh had left him in physical therapy and off his team. The military pay had been fine, but after working in a desk job for three years and getting married, he had switched to the private sector.

And now with a team and responsibilities, he needed to rescue the team by beating the freezing Russian fall and find Alex.

Whatever Alex had done, he was stupid, but that guy had saved his back time and time again. Alex was maybe twentytwo and he'd almost taken a bullet for Brandon once, beating back a desperate drug dealer in the last second by pure skill.

Brandon stopped for a second to lean against a tree while panting harshly. Everything was the same shade of dark gray, but his breath was clearly outlined. After a minute he shoved himself weakly in the same direction, following the road towards the gas station where a man was waiting with a cell phone…if an assassin could be trusted. Possibly he was just making sure the body of a foreign citizen did not end up spurring an international conflict that could be traced back to him.

There hadn't been any buildings near the gas station for miles, however, and another fifteen would probably be his limit. He pushed on against the black spots suddenly threatening his vision, ignoring the nausea in his stomach.

That was it then. Go back to base and meet up with the team. Find Alex. Rescue him. Kill him. Then take out the rest of the stupid fucking bastards that had messed with their team, and get out of this bloody country.

Goddam he needed some sleep.

-AR-

Normally citizens of any developed country are offered due protection against cruel and unusual treatment from other citizens and the government. Apparently those that volunteered for abuse by signing their soul to the government were beyond such consideration.

Russian Special Forces had some of the most intense training programs in the world. Every capable Israeli citizen spent time in the army, and of those a few are selected through rigorous training to live defending the country from its enemies on all side. The Navy Seals lose trainees almost every year from accidents during their training program. Hopeful men freezing to death when a fire is across their campsite because they are too strong to give in to the frostbite they are feeling.

None of these can compare to the pure fear instilled by knowing that you will be killed, possibly over a number of days, when training for a job directly under the head of the mob. The training was messier, less coordinated, but it worked because no matter how ideological a man may be, his training will fall short of taking out a desperate assassin who is used to fighting with broken glass in each hand.

The mafia leader watched his young twins crawl around on the floor. He had lost two highly trained men, good at their jobs, but he had what he desired: the formula for a new, addictive drug, tested and ready for production. And he had a prisoner. 

A text lit up the iPhone 5 lying on the mobster's desk, another from Gregorovich. He was almost tempted to reply 'shoot the kid," but refrained. A kid that an American agency wanted back quite quickly; surely they would pay…?

Quickly the reply was typed and sent while a child banged the wall in the background.

\--AR—


	4. Convictions

" **All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first." ~James Thurber**

"I'm going to kill you."

Yassen glanced in the rearview mirror, switching lanes smoothly as he neared his destination. "Is that the wisest thing you could say to the man holding you hostage?"

Alex smiled. Overnight he had transformed from a scared kid back into the competent spy he had been for many years. A catnap had helped. Through the passenger window billboard signs advertised cheap, fun, sexy Russian ladies. "I didn't know how I was going to react when I first saw you pop up on the radar," he said conversationally, his voice just a little too high. A child waving eagerly through the window of a battered blue car smiled at everything in her sight, and a shudder snaked quickly through Alex's body. He continued on his proven path of dealing with hostage situations undeterred, however, reaching for a show that he was making a crack in the assassin's shell. Air Force One served as a constant reminded that even Gregorovich had emotions – the creeping horror of realizing that Ian's murderer was trained by Alex's father clung too tightly to raw emotion to mask, and Alex fully intended to use his own emotions rattle his captor. "But now I know. I'm going to disarm you, point a gun at you long enough for you to know it was me that murdered you, and then I'm going to shoot you. Preferably in the gut; the most painful death for a murderer."

"I'll keep your words in mind."

Again the teenager smirked. "You do that."

The car ground to a halt; Yassen put the gear in park. "Oh, a waffle joint. Menacing. Was the bouncy castle taken by a bald man in a wheelchair, stroking a cat?"

"You wanted breakfast." Yassen pulled the key out of the car, and unfastened the handcuffs. "I trust threats aren't in order?"

"I've heard them all already, yeah. They usually go something along the lines of you'll kill everyone in the place if I scream for help, then trap me in an iron maiden for a couple of weeks while I slowly bleed to death?"

"You'd die of thirst before bleeding to death, but yes, the general idea remains."

Alex stepped into the heat of the sun, stretching. His arms had been screaming for relief from the cramped position they were forced into for hours, but the cuffs hadn't even been tight enough to leave red marks.

Except for the menu being printed in Russian, the atmosphere and running of the waffle house reminded Alex of the IHOP across the road from headquarters back in America. After being waved to an area of the restaurant and settling into a four person booth, Yassen made no further attempt to communicate with Alex, pulling a book out of a small black backpack he had brought in.

"So how does Steve Jobs biography relate to killing people, exactly?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow. There was no response forthcoming. Sighing loudly, stuck between pursuing a plan of annoying Yassen into mistakes through acting like a petulant child and creating progressing threats of violent deaths, neither of which seemed a viable option, Alex half-heartedly examined the mostly empty room. His hope for rescue, as he was well aware, rested almost entirely on his team tracing him down somehow. Verbal threats or petty annoyances weren't going anywhere, but he saw no other use of his time. At the very least, his childish actions would convince Yassen that Alex wasn't enough of a threat to be treated with the full prisoner 'privileges' that an older militaristic type might receive, like kneeling in the P.O.W. position for hours at a time. It could help with escape chances.

A waitress came and went, taking their order from Yassen in a rapid exchange of unintelligible syllables. "Asking what I wanted wouldn't have really taken much of an effort, you know," Alex commented after he was sure the waitress was out of earshot, not ready to deal with finding the one waitress who spoke English.

The meal came and the two ate silently, Alex staring blankly into space. Yassen paid and they returned to the vehicle, Alex walking in front. Nearing the car, he slowed his pace. They had parked far enough from the restaurant that a scream for help would be obscured by the clamor of traffic from the adjacent highway. A gaggle of bushes obscured the view. Behind the parking spots a thin scattering of trees stood, with another section of busy highway right beyond.

Alex stopped beside the passenger door, and turned to face the assassin. He reached for the door, and paused. "So remind me again, why I'm not fighting back?"

"Alex, get in the car," Yassen said quietly.

"Right," Alex said, and punched Yassen in the stomach. Then he turned and ran into the trees. The Russian took a step back before following. Youth backed up Alex, but experience and pure strength propelled Gregorovich in pursuit. Alex hadn't gotten twenty meters before he was knocked to the ground.

Rolling onto his back a second before a kick aimed at Alex's head landed, he threw his hands up in defense, softening the blow. A gun had appeared in Yassen's hand in the brief struggle, and it was hidden in the waist holster again. Alex scrambled backwards through dry leaves, pushing himself up onto his elbows before pushing himself straight up. He attempted to sprint again, and was met with Yassen grabbing the back of his shirt as he passed. Releasing him long enough to grab Alex by the hair, he dragged the struggling teenager back to the car.

Alex gritted his teeth against the pain, reaching out to grab onto Yassen's arm, pulling it off of him.

Yassen slammed the teenager against the pavement, and knelt down so that his hand was cradling Alex's throat. " _That_ was foolish."

"What, my last ditch effort to prevent finding myself dead within a day?" Alex wheezed, the hand constricting his throat just enough that he could feel the pressure.

"Yes, and warning me beforehand." Yassen increased the pressure tenfold, squeezing tightly. Alex struggled, clawing at the ground as he gasped like a fish out of water for air. Violent and indigo spots danced across his vision as the oxygen flow the brain ceased. A field of black threatened to claim his vision as his thoughts grew hazy, as if he'd been drugged. Seconds before fully passing out, Yassen stood up, releasing Alex. "If you aren't buckled into the passenger seat within a minute I’ll shoot you in your knee."

"Fuck you," Alex muttered. Without the strength or will to fight, Alex wrestled back the pull of gravity, dragging himself off the ground and staggering into the car. His head pounded, feeling like a ton of bricks had just collided into it. Leaning back into the seat, exhaustion claimed him.

But he had learned something. Whoever Yassen was taking him to, he didn't want Alex shot.

\---AR---

Hundreds of reports found themselves recycled daily through the desks of the men and women working behind the scenes of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. A few of those reports somehow left the piles to be sent to upper level heads. Responsible for domestic intelligence affairs, as well as counter intelligence, surveillance, and security, the organization dealt with terrorist attacks annually. So to make the top dogs pay attention, big names had to be involved. Names like international celebrities, such as Ron L. Hubbard, Damien Cray or the Pope, or big name politicians like Obama or Putin. Or spies and the terrorist organizations that kept them in business. Scorpia and Al Qaeda, The Gentleman. And suddenly, Alex Rider.

Darkly a heavyset balding man glared at the piece of paper. "So you're telling me this kid, Rider, saved our president?" he asked, his heavy voice occupying the room.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Pavlovskii," said a suit.

"And now he's missing behind our borders, according to some US based military company. Americans, think they own everything, as if we can just give them rights to tromp through the country, looking for their missing member. As if we have the time or energy to waste looking for this fucking kid, with a suicide bomber in St. Petersburg last weekend and the corruption charges in the election. And now suddenly the damn president is claiming we need to help find this kid because of a personal favor that supposedly every single member of this country owes the kid. He's not even 20, and not even really American. Combine a Brit and an American and what do you get, Maslov?"

"I don't know, sir."

"A self-entitled, waste of energy brat." Behind his desk, Pavlovskii shook his head with disgust. He reached for a cigarette before pulling back – dealing with the wife berating him for the guilty pleasures of life was the last thing he wanted at the end of today. "Tell the president that I'm sending my top agents to find the lucky bastard. And  _someone, please_  get me access to the rest of this kid's fucking files!"

"And sir, what about the assassin they reported? And what are we doing with the Americans? They did enter our country under pretense."

"Lock 'em up until I have a chance to talk to them. Make sure there isn't any nasty business – we don't need to deal with an international incident as well. Transparency and all that. As for Gregorovich, get him alive. The Russian government has some questions for him."

\---AR


	5. Introductions

## “No one will ever kill me, they wouldn’t dare." -Italian mobster  **Carmine Galante**

Of the multitudes of accusations the American agents could throw at the Russian government officials currently holding them as political trespassers, inhospitality was not one of them. Tensions between America and Russia were strained by third world rebellion – cruelty towards transgressors of a relatively minor crime was not on the agenda. Well, sneaking into Russia was hardly minor, but compared to current international affairs in the Middle East, it took a backseat.

"You have no idea where our agents are, do you?" Sylvester asked the man who had escorted their members to a series of rooms.

"Not at the moment, but our agents are working on locating Rider and your other man. Our president is putting many of our top men on the trail – aside from a personal debt of gratitude owed to Mr. Rider, the information related to drug creation is alarming." The suit glanced around the room – attached to a restroom and a long chamber holding eight bunks attached to the wall, a small living area completed by a mini kitchen and almost new television set held the uninjured agents picked up. He grimaced, not unkindly, and continued in his mild Slavic accent. "We'll be contacting the United States to discuss prisoner release. Due to the  _philanthropic_ drug ceasing nature of contract your company held in America, it's unlikely our nation will press charges against you. This does not forgive the Western attitude in licensing men to cross our borders and conduct investigations without permission or proof. Unfortunately, you may be here a while."

"How long is a while?" Harris inquired, reclining in a tired blue loveseat.

"Six months, a year," the suit shrugged. "Do not think our government is unkind – you could be in prison right now. We will allow communication and letters to your family to be sent, if you wish."

"And we are very grateful," Harris lied smoothly. "What about my men in the infirmary?"

"Possibly they will be sent home – or to the embassy early, as a sign of good will. Russia tries it's best to maintain favorable diplomacy with the West, however often they attempt to sever our extended hand. Do you have any other questions?"

The assembled men kept quiet. They had plenty of questions, but the likelihood they would be answered honestly but this diplomat of Russian anti-Western attitudes? Even on orders from the president to play nice to the friends of his young savior, semi-comfortable quarters as a prison were they best they could hope for. They might be free to write letters to their family and the Russian agents might not truly resent them, but that didn't mean their words would arrive uncensored or that they'd be treated as princesses.

"Good. Food fill be brought in shortly. If you have any questions, press this button," here the man gestured to white doorbell the size of a penny beside the main door. When the men continued staring blankly at him, the suit nodded good-day and left the apartment. There were no locks on the door, but they would not be able to leave.

"Well boys, fuck this situation." The men nodded and smiled grimly. Conversationally Harris continued, "If Alex doesn't survive Gregorovich I'm going to beat the kid into a fucking bag of pulp for making us turn ourselves over to the KGB here."

“Agreed.”

\---AR---

The car pulled to a stop once again. Alex stared dully out the window. What felt like a full day had passed, but he'd spend maybe a cumulative hour sleeping. They were in Moscow – for the past hour a few signs translated into English had conspired to prove that. Grey apartment complexes, identical to the last few blocks, surrounded the parked car. Alex's headache from the earlier abuse was almost gone, and in return apprehension and fatigue consumed him.

Yassen was texting again, this time while pulling the American's stuff out of the backseat. "Get up."

Too tired to put up a fight, and far too mentally battered to come up with another clever quip Alex slumped out of the passenger seat and shut the door, leaving his palms facing up and hands in plain view. The universal language of surrender, Alex's long lost best friend.

"Follow me," Yassen commanded, and led the way up a dimly lit staircase to a third story apartment in the middle of the street. "Knock twice, and keep your hands in the air."

A minute passed before the door was answered by a well built, dark haired girl in her early thirties. In a plain black dress wearing an apron, she was likely the help. She waved them into a small waiting room and greeted Yassen in Russian before going down the hallway and ducking into a well lit room. Yassen took his coat off and hung it over the back of a chair, placing the American's supplies on the chair itself.

Once inside it was obvious the apartment didn't belong to any average middle class family – the walls entering the apartment were too thick to not hold some sort of reinforcement against attack or eavesdroppers. Two men in tight military clothing were seated in the small sitting room – one was holding a gun and watching the new arrivals, the other faced computer monitors set into the wall displaying various shots of outside the apartment.

"Take off your shoes," Yassen told Alex before addressing several foreign words to the guards. Computer man nodded and typed a quick command into smart phone. Without a word Alex slipped off his shoes and kicked them toward the wall, keeping his hands in the air.

"He will see you now," computer man spoke in clumsy, barely decipherable English. Yassen headed down the hallway and with a short pause, Alex followed.

Molotov's phone buzzed. Quickly he read the text and quickly replied that he would see Gregorovich now. Kissing his sleeping wife's brow, he arranged her laying out on the couch and entered the back door to his office. This was the only currently unlocked door leading between his home apartment and the one he did business in, but both were intensively guarded. Taking a seat behind his desk, the man brushed away the strands of Ella's hair clinging to his black muscle shirt.

The door opened and a blond boy, possibly nineteen or twenty, was shoved in, hands up and rings under the eyes. "Take a seat," Molotov advised, nodding at the four chairs in front of his desk. The boy did, and Yassen placed the briefcase on the desk before following his lead.

"You're younger than I expected." The mob leader critically examined the agent.

Alex slowly lowered his hands to the seat's hand rests. "I get that a lot. Except usually the bad guy says I'm handsomer than they expect. Apparently I'm just too beautiful to die. Or be hurt, or end up in any way facing negative repercussions for my heroic and princely actions."

"Heroic and princely actions that saved the president's life two years ago?" Mentally he did the math – the boy had saved Russia when he was 16?

"Three years ago, actually. Three and half years, if you want to be technical." Tightly an impish smile forced itself across Alex's face.

"And now I'm missing two perfectly good men. One of them supported three children. What a heroic child you must have been indeed, to grow into the life of a professional nuisance."

"There are probably plenty of – "

"Be quiet," Molotov ordered softly. Immediately Alex complied, looking stunned for a second. Swiveling his chair to face Yassen, Molotov inspected the briefcase.

"All of the formulas and test samples are in there," the assassin supplied. "Rousseau was careless with his innovation."

"Fine. I'm putting this into safe, wait for me to return." Molotov closed the briefcase and left via the door behind the guest chairs. Alex turned to watch him go, and his eyes fell onto a children's rattle lying on the ground. He swallowed and turned back to face the desk. The walls of the room were blank except for two massive oil paintings of nineteenth century Russia. Files on the desk appeared to be mostly for show. Nothing personal about the room, but did Alex really think the man just happened to have kids who played in their dads workroom and left rattles? Maybe a kid brought in to be killed to make a point. Like Alex?

Briefly he stole a glimpse at Yassen. He was sitting his legs crossed and eyes closed – perfectly relaxed at first glance. It would probably take a second for him to react if Alex made any sudden movements.

Bracing his hands against the arms of the chair, he slowly changed pushed himself upright. If push came to shove, dying in a hail of gunfire was better than, well, really any of the tortures men in positions similar to Molotov tended to devise in order to satiate their sadistic urges.

"Don't be stupid, Alex." Yassen's eyes remained closed, and he hadn't moved, but Alex sat back down.

The mobster entered the room again. "You've cost me two employees, and the time it took to train them," he addressed Alex. "If you have the money to compensate me for their loss, I would mention it now, and quickly."

"I didn't kill them."

"Your company killed them. I have you here." Molotov smiled coldly. "And?"

"I don't have any money to give you."

Yassen looked over Alex. "Surprising that you would work in the richest nation in the world, in a company provided for by the American military, and you have no money."

"I  _have_  money. I'm not giving it to be used financing the Russian mob, paying for the likes of you." There was a brief silence, and from the disdainful expression Yassen wore Alex clearly wasn't following his instructions to not be stupid. He couldn't tell if Yassen particularly cared or not, though. "I suppose this is the part where you start threatening me. Yassen will cut my fingers off with scissors, yeah?"

"There are other ways to reimburse losses," the assassin pondered. "I believe an old acquaintance of yours was in the organ harvesting business?"

Alex froze. Yassen was tracking him. No, that didn't make sense; the Russian hadn't even been out of his coma yet, had he? Maybe he'd just read up on the various meetings between members of SCORPIA and Alex after the fact?

He laughed, but it was shaky. "You could. I don't really have the gun in the relationship right now."

"No." Molotov smiled and tipped his head. He could just as easily ordered Alex shot then it seemed.

"Then there are organizations, individuals, remnants of once powerful groups who would pay for a chance to own Alex," Yassen suggested. He reclined backwards with ease, allowing a small smirk towards the stiff captive. "He is quite an interesting individual, and many plans were foiled by him before he even turned 15. Not to mention people who met the double agent his father was, or his uncle, a British spy. I'd imagine anyone who's met his family would gladly pay for the pleasure of exterminating the branch once and for all. And there are ways to ensure multiple bids, of making various groups happy."

Alex could have run then. Yassen knew who he was, all right, and he knew who Alex's father was. There was no way he couldn't have found out, after a week conscious in MI6's company before a rescue from a newly Julia Rothman-free SCORPIA. A younger Yassen thought John his hero. Alex's was so consumed by Brandon and the rest of his teammates, Alex forgot to consider Yassen's reaction to news that would devastate his memories.

"All excellent ideas, I'd think." The mobster nodded his head in deep thought. "Alex?" he asked Yassen, clarifying the name. A brief nod in return, and "Alex, wonderful. What do you think? I'm willing to compromise on your fate, but first I'm going to need my refund."

"I think you're going to have to try harder if you want my money. As far as motivations and terror inducing threats go, you're a three out of five. You aren't even showing any skin – let's be realistic, this isn't a kids movie, you're allowed to dress for the occasion. Where are the fancy tricks?"

"And Alex, you will have to try harder if you want to leave this situation alive." A ring punctuated the tension, and the mob leader glanced at his phone. "My wife should be getting to bed now, and I'm going to give her some company. Gregorovich, you know where the cells and tools are. I don't particularly care what you do with Alex tonight, but we can rejoin tomorrow morning to discuss the options. For an idea, Alex, I believe three hundred thousand American dollars would be roughly sufficient tonight. For every additional night that it takes to bring me my money, I will add fifty thousand." The mobster exited stage right, through a door behind the desk. Several soft knocks on the door brought to mind extra locks securing the separation of the two apartments.

And then they were alone.

Yassen stood up and pushed in his chair.

Alex inhaled a breath and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly in a futile attempt to calm down.  _Gregorovich, you know where the cells and tools are._ Well that was it then. Yassen knew the truth about John Rider and was probably set back years in skill level after taking a bullet for Alex. Now as long as Alex was there to walk back in – well, not even that – as long as Alex was  _alive_ tomorrow the assassin had access to everything needed to torture him to near death.

"Get up, Alex." There was no way to interpret Yassen's tone. Childishly, he grabbed the armrests.

"I'm not my father," his voice was desperate, on the edge of pleading. He shook his head. Fuck this, he wasn't beaten yet. Boldly, "You said you do things for the money, not because it's personal."

"If that's your attempt at a lead in to bribery, stop now."

"Maybe it was an attempt at groveling?" Alex tried. "You know, practicing the helpless act before I kill you."

"You'll have plenty of time to practice in the following days. Get up. You do not want me to force your hand," Yassen commanded impatiently.

"And then what happens?"

"I lock you in a cell and you spend a sleepless night afraid of whatever we decide should happen to you."

Alex stood up, and immediately tripped ending up sprawled across the floor. Distastefully stepping back, Yassen allowed Alex a chance to drag his body up and follow him outside, where he was handed to a guard to be locked into a small, bare closet almost entirely filled by the presence of an air mattress and a few sheets set up in the corner. He collapsed onto the bed and shivered. Hostage situations with himself as the hostage – now there was a circumstance he hadn't seen in the past four years.

Fuck.

About to step into the shower, another text lit up Molotov's phone. "Ah," he exhaled. This was a fortuitous turn of events. Why did all of the best things come from American-Russian relations?

\---AR---

 


	6. Politics

"Let us resolve the internal political problems of Russia ourselves."  
― Vladimir Putin

Alex grimaced. Lying on his side with a sweat drenched back and three sheets knotted around his legs, he had little doubt hours had passed since the mobster graciously offered respite vis-à-vis assurances of various unpleasant fates to think on. If he truly thought Yassen's boss would let him walk away, he'd offer whatever money was wanted himself. Three million dollars, even to a nefarious gangster, wasn't worth his life.

And then Yassen needed consideration. Selling his organs, forced prostitution, selling him to the highest bidder – in three minutes the worst fears of his life were presented as the options he got to choose between, not by the mob leader, but Yassen. Clearly there was no lost love between Gregorovich and Alex, now that John's secrets were out in the open.

But he hadn't tortured Alex, and he hadn't shot Brandon. The mob leader gave Yassen full permission to do whatever he wanted last night insofar that he arrived back at the discussion in one piece in the morning. Yassen had taunted him, sure, but tossing him onto a mattress and locking the door (or handing him off to a guard to do the same) was hardly hateful.

At least he knew there would be no last minute saves from madmen's bullets. Not that Alex thought the mob boss was crazy. Just greedy, happy in a position of power, and slightly sadistic.

I need sleep, Alex thought, in the dark recesses of his brain. More than that, he needed an escape. A way home, or to the American embassy – hell, the British embassy would take him. The new head of MI6, in his last discussion with Alex about his old life, made it abundantly clear that the British government was willing to move mountains, within reason, in regards to protecting Alex from the negative consequences of his spy life. (As well, the unspoken agreement went, protecting MI6 from the negative consequences of his spy life. Child spies being generally not approved by international human rights laws.)

He'd had a gun, before charging into a dark room where Yassen could easily take it from him. Back at the temporary headquarters he'd worn a walkie-talkie – hell knows where that ended up. With a groan Alex felt along the wall on each side, crawling on his hands and knees to avoid knocking into the closet sides in the dark. There was nothing he could do except sleep. But no matter how many hostage situations he had worked from the other side, knowing that sleep was necessary to recoup his energy  _did not_ equate to managing sleep knowing that morning would break to the Russian mob deciding on his method of disposal.

Not the organ donors. Alex couldn't stop a sudden rush from pulsing through his body, leaving him shaking on the air mattress. After a night of shaking, it was half deflated. He could handle pain. No, he couldn't, but eventually it'd be over. Rape at the hands of dozens of the upset terrorists he'd stopped at one point or another – when did that become the least troublesome? At least his body was in one piece – he could see, and hear, and taste.

In the darkness he traced the jagged edge he'd created with the nicked child's rattle. Assuming he could find a distraction, the tool might create the last chance opportunity he needed. Or, if things got desperate, an easier way out (for himself).

Alex closed his eyes and timed his breathing.

\---AR---

Few occasions warranted waking up the head of MI6, and even fewer deserved the personal attention of the CIA's director. And yet both were currently on the phone haggling with Eric Pavloskii, despite the current nonconventional hours of early morning and near midnight, respectively.

"Alex Rider was an experiment that won't be repeated, but you understand it would cause considerable embarrassment to our agencies if these files were made accessible," MI6's head stated.

"Then expect a dead body to be shipped back to American soils, if we can't get access to assessments of his earlier life. A select few men will be the only ones looking into the file, and they don't have permission to speak about the former agent's life, but you understand I can't spare unprepared manpower to trace down an illegal alien, especially when I can't even get a straight answer over his current home country!" Pavloskii thundered. At least part of his statement was false, with men already deployed to track Rider, but forcing the hands of foreign countries intelligence agencies was difficult enough without bringing such convoluted issues such as truth to the table. As an afterthought, he threw out "Wouldn't it easier to both of your agencies to turn a blind eye and allow the embarrassment of a former child spy disappear forever?"

"No one is suggesting that. But state secrets are contained for a reason, and on the more personable end Alex doesn't deserve to be rescued because the world suddenly knows his face, turning him into a freak and target." Glancing over the limited access to MI6's file on Alex Rider, the CIA director frowned, embarrassed by the record of the former operator. Muffling the receiver on his phone, he called into the other room of his house, asking his wife to go ahead with their dinner without him.

"And no one here is disputing that Alex will likely return to America, but he is still a British citizen with access to British state secrets. At the very least he needs to talk with an agent of ours before retreating to the states."

"Or in the states," the American pointed out. "Best yet would be bringing him to the British Embassy in Moscow before allowing him to return. And perhaps the president will not be so indisposed to allowing the team he arrived with to come back as well?"

"The American State Department is already talking to the president about returning the entire group to the American embassy. Suffice it to say that allowing criminal charges to be dropped is entirely within our jurisdiction, provided we reach a compromise."

Harsh undertones were newly apparent in the British speaker's voice. "As sad as it is that these Americans are confined in Russian territory, they did enter under false names and reasons, and that has nothing to do with finding Alex Rider. Surely the president has not forgotten the debt he owes Alex?"

In the KGB offices in St. Petersburg, Pavloskii pursed his lips and shook his head. Eventually both the Americans and British would allow the files to be sent to him through a secured connections, but even after that was agreed on there would be matters of both agencies wanting their men present to protect Alex from Russian interrogation, and writing out exact deals integrating satellite and information use with man searches, and then the matters of extradition (which, if time dragged on without even a DNA strand of the boy showing up, wouldn't be necessary). If only for the sake of his sleep, he hoped Alex Rider turned up soon.

\---AR---

"Did you have an actual plan for dealing with Alex?" Molotov asked idly in Russian, glancing across his desk at Yassen. His early morning walk with the wife and kids had passed pleasantly, and little (including the inevitable unpleasant fate of the captured teenager) could ruin his mood.

"I gave several last night."

"Painful, impossible to implement plans that leave open opportunities for his people to attempt a rescue. Or complicated relationships with terrorists – hardly a group I would guarantee a return on my money from."

Yassen shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me, but I want him scared."

"Reasonable," the mobster said, changing the subject. "I sent copies of the formula to the lab in Yekaterinburg. They said we should be ready to test on rats in a week. But an interesting development – a Russian spy placed in an American lab said the Americans created the drug. I had a man on the inside leak the news to me, but the president knows."

"That's why he signed the law banning Americans from adopting?"

"It's a theory. Apparently only Putin and a few advisors know, but I'd hate to be an American diplomat in the following weeks, especially once the drugs start circulation. There's a possibility they'll be too busy duking it out among themselves to really concern themselves with stopping our new drug sales."

\---AR---

Alex's mind wandered on, looking for distractions. Maybe he'd even luck upon a catnap if he could settle down.

Moneywise…three hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money. More than he'd made in the past two years. But not more than he had access to, thanks to a rather recent monetary reimbursement from the new head of MI6. And even with his expatriate status, MI6 had guarded his information as if he was an adult member of their organization. All in all, since Egypt they'd been civil, even taking care of Jack's funeral. A year ago they'd gone so far as to get him classified files for a case his organization was handling. According to Smithers, the only reason Blunt didn't have charges pressed against him for "the Alex affair" was MI6 fearing the scandal going public.

And what was so wrong with paying the ransom? Money wasn't worth anything to him dead, and on second thought even just promises of a quick, painless death could easily equal three hundred thousand. Still, Alex dug the wood shards against his palm. Giving money to Yassen and his boss to kill him didn't sit right. He was man enough to go through a bit of pain, no matter his pleading earlier in the night (yesterday?).

 _No, Alex, you aren't,_ he chided himself. Fear of purposeless pain has nothing to do with being a man, and of course you're going to beg to get out of torture – it doesn't make you less of anything, especially when the only thing you're giving up is a bit of pride. Your team is fine, the drug formula is already in the mobsters hands – getting out alive is the only thing you need to focus on, and you deserve to live. Pride is not worth dying over.

And so ultimately the question lay in whether there was any hope in being allowed out of this situation alive. If the mobster would take a bribe, pay it. If the bribe only existed to take away a bit of pain/organ pilfering, it was time to madly attack.

His lashes fluttered. He was tired. Exhausted, scared, and as prepared as he could expect, Alex rolled onto his side. Sleep, he commanded himself.

Delirious, he laughed. Here his inner self was, telling him what to do like an impudent child, and it just reminded him of Yassen. Little Alex, he mocked himself sardonically, put your hands in the air. Don't be stupid, give me the gun, go back to school, and if I see you again I'll force you to dress like a matador and attempt suicide while people give you flowers. But I'm protecting you, because I love your father and love you, and by the fucking way go check out this lunatic group called SCORPIA. If that doesn't work out, just screw yourself and eat some waffles while I find out some stuff about your dad that I should have been clever enough to realize eighteen fucking goddamn years ago. Then I'll go bloody sulk like I'm the only one with a bullet in me, and start thinking up plans to get revenge on the defenseless kid who hasn't killed me yet.

A vengeful smirk twisted itself across Alex's face. It might be worth dying a painful death if he could take Yassen down with him – stab him with the wood, shoot him in the head, it didn't really matter, though he was personally inclined towards the messy end of the spectrum. Did assassins really need fingers? Or eyes? Apparently fifteen year old girls and Alex didn't.

\---AR---

CEOs could make hundreds of thousands off the governments after scandals broke, Jerome thought to himself, but perhaps the government ought to focus on paying their own intelligence officers instead. After all, if he was making even another fifty thousand a year he wouldn't be going to tell the mob boss Molotov (Dead Dog on a bad day) that the KGB was coming after him. At least that's what he told himself, but greed is one of those pesky sins that seem to pervade the air no matter the amount of safeguards placed against it.

Jerome saw bribes happen every day, and no matter how technically illegal they were, or how many law officers were around when the exchange took place, few ever seemed to get punished. And oddly enough, those caught and punished were those presiding in certain positions in certain opposition parties against the president. What was the difference between investing in a bribe to secure a job interview and making a bit of spare change by telling the Dog at the top of the pile that some people were coming after some kid he was holding, and by extension him? It was a bit immoral of the government, anyway, he figured, to ignore the previous understanding they had with the mob (we leave you alone, you don't draw attention to our illegal activities with you or order hits on high up officials) just cause some eighteen year old (the son of a diplomat, he guessed) ran away to join to mob. He probably had a friend in the group, or wanted to impress a girl. What's the harm in that, really? No one was getting hurt by Jerome letting the mob escape. And his wallet wasn't complaining.

And attacking Dead Dog in his place of residence? Really, it was just disrespectful. Just bad manners. The government deserved selling out for that alone, as far as he was concerned.

\----AR---

"Good morning, Alexander Rider. I suppose you've come up with a payment plan for the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars you owe me?"

Alex stared back, barely keeping his eyes from drooping. He'd been woken up with a flashlight pointed into his eyes maybe five minutes ago, given a chance to use the restroom and brush his teeth, and then accompanied into the same office as last night. The mob boss was wearing a black suit that, begrudgingly, Alex admitted made him look somewhat handsome, for a man in his late forties. Yassen was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room, holding a cup of coffee Alex could smell from across the room. His stomach growled and he reclined against the chair with a grimace.

"It’s just Alex, thanks. And wasn’t it 300,000 last night?”

"I said fifty thousand in interest a day, and it's the next day."

"Well there goes my plan." Alex met Molotov's eyes, refusing to flinch away. A dark silence brewed. "Maybe if I ate something I'd be a bit more helpful. Removing the hired help in the corner might free a bit more of my mind too, if we're trying to maximize my potential here. My teachers always said I had great potential, if the conditions were right."

"Food is reward, not a right," the mobster returned. "And unfortunately for your teachers, it seems your potential will go wasted."

Alex laughed. "My potential was already screwed according to them, so no great loss. Something about murdered guardians and manipulative terrorists makes it hard for a kid to focus, it seems."

"You're avoiding my question." Molotov's eyes flicked to Yassen, while Alex realized his background as a spy was the subject of private discussion earlier. "I don't know what experiences you've had a prisoner, only that you've had them. But I am not here to make empty threats, or attempt grand plots. I am in charge of an efficient machine, and you are here only so long as I figure out what I need to turn you into an asset. You are not a guest, you are not a hostage, and you are not a hero. Amusing as the discussion last night was, I don't have an active interest in dealing with terrorists just to recoup my losses."

"Shame, because whatever's left of SCORPIA might-"

"Alex, I invite you to remember the saying children should be seen and not heard. You are not my child, and I don't care to listen to you. Especially when I am talking." There was a minute of silence as the two stared at each other. "I don't particularly dislike you. I don't care what happens to you. I care about my money. If you don't have a way to get my money returned to me by tonight I will flip a coin between selling your insides and giving you to one of my brothels. " Molotov's upper lip twisted halfway. "Or perhaps I will ask Gregorovich to choose."

"Fine," Alex said. Butterflies flew across football fields in his stomach. Somehow it was always the sane ones that terrified him most. They were the ones you couldn't aggravate into killing you in intricate, escapable ways. "I can get you what you want and more. But you have to let me go, uninjured, and forget you saw me."

"I don't have to do anything."

"Then don't, and sell me out, in whatever way you choose. I can't stop you. But I'm not an idiot. You won't get half of what you want by selling my organs. At least not you personally. Bribes to make people look the other way, paying off the doctors, ice for my kidneys," Alex shrugged sarcastically. "I doubt I'd be cooperative in either, so I guess ropes might come in handy. And I don't know about prostitution, I don't really need to pay for my flings, but however great I might be in bed I'm not worth that kind of money. Especially just for a night. Unless your clients pay for fighting, or the novelty of "owning" a former child spy. Assassins don't even make that kind of money, as far as I know."

Molotov laughed softly. "So you're offering?"

"I have half a million dollars in the bank," Alex said, which was true. It forgot about the second half of his fortune, but he  _had_  half a million in the bank. "I can get you a hundred thousand now, and when you let me go the rest will be wired to you. We can walk away from this without anyone getting hurt, and you'll have your money."

"A brilliant suggestion that completely forgets the fact that we can get that money anyway," Yassen said, coming out of the corner and taking a seat, abandoning the coffee on Molotov's desk. "It would not be hard, and in the end you could be sold for a bonus. Perhaps clients would pay slightly less when the object of their short lived affection is missing three fingers, but a prostitute who couldn't see the person who took advantage of them will give them a sense of security."

Molotov glanced between the two. "Interesting as your suggestions are, Alex, others are waiting to meet me. Gregorovich can help fine tune any other ideas you come up with for the rest of the day, and then we will sit down and discuss. And on the increasingly likely chance you fail to meet my expectations, he can help me decide which option is more viable." He walked around the desk to the door facing the business apartment, but stopped to look down at Alex. "Don't waste your time begging if you haven't come up with an idea by dinner. I'm giving you a chance. I haven't even ordered Gregorovich to take your banking information from you."

"Yet," Alex muttered.

"Precisely."

The door shut, and Alex focused on controlling his breathing, trying to look collected.

"If you don't have any other ideas, Alex, I'd like to work out."

Alex shook his head, spent. "Why did you do that?"

"And by that…?" Yassen trailed off, impatiently.

"I could have paid my ransom and left. Do you hate me so much that I have to be in the absolute worst circumstances to make you happy?" Alex buried his head in his hands, leaning forward.

"You threatened to kill me. Is that my cue to beg for your release?" the Russian condescended. "Actions have consequences, and it's not in my job description to save you from your own carelessness. Your plan was never going to work, and all three of us would be better served not wasting time talking about it."

"Oh, so you're helping me now?" Alex bit back.

"I'm giving you a chance to figure it out. I'm not on your side, Alex. What was it you said about potential – it needs the right environment? You should have stayed in school, instead of chasing MI6 for jobs."

"I never had any fucking potential!" Alex stood up, "You killed my uncle, and suddenly I was being blackmailed, and then you sent me to find a bunch of bloody trigger happy terrorists that wanted to kill me ten times over!" He stopped, noticing the whine. He needed a gun, or a distraction. Even a solid hammer could do the trick.

Unconcerned, Yassen stood up to match. "That's not my problem," he stated softly.

"Right." Alex looked down. The floor looked as inviting as a king sized bed with a water mattress right now. Was Yassen supposed to keep Alex with him today, or did talking for a few minutes before summoning guards suffice? If the former, sometime Yassen would eat, and he might not care enough to withhold food like the mobster advocated. Twenty four hours was long enough to think on an empty stomach already. But he wasn't going to ask – he'd gone longer, like being holed up in a trench in Pakistan waiting for a bunch of terrorists to fuck off. And then he was putting up with Brandon's constant threats of cannibalism. "If you're so fucking fantastic at this, what do you think I should do?"

"Come up with $350,000 before dinner."

Alex laughed bitterly. He could barely keep his eyes open, and it looked like Yassen was texting again. Probably – but assassins weren't exempt from playing Angry Birds, so who knew. It wasn't as if they were discussing his life, or how much of it remained. Not that the hit man cared. "Fine, so what if I don't? What option are you going to chose? Or better yet, torture me until I give you all of my bank information, steal my money and then decide."

"Sounds like you've finally come up with a working plan," Yassen commented.

Alex slammed his fist on the desk, frustrated. "You're both asses. And your boss is a liar. He said all he wanted was the money 'I owe him', which five hundred thousand more than covers."

"You expected transparency and fairness from illegal organizations? Or perhaps you thought I would save you?"

"I don't want or need anything from you." Alex's mind cast around for the wooden weapon in his pockets. He could make a break for it at the front of the apartment, stab someone and run. It wouldn't work, it would be nearly suicide, but a bullet in the back was better than the current plans the mob created.

Yassen idly read over the list of employees paid today on his phone, mostly ignoring Alex's yammering. When the spy calmed down he would lock him up and go workout; Alex would fall asleep without causing trouble. By tomorrow he'd be gone, or the day after if interrogation was pursued.

But he couldn't ignore the small part of his inner conscious speaking out. Normally silent on all matters, his conscious flinched away from the idea of hurting Alex. Or seeing him shipped off for abuse and death. When Alex taunted him by asking which he'd choose…he'd choose killing Alex with a bullet to the head sooner than either of them. Or letting him give Molotov his half million and run, however stupid and naïve the idea was...Molotov would never release Alex, now that he had met the man in person.

But Alex's fate wasn't worth losing sleep over, let alone his job. Again.

\---AR---

Russian special ops are some of the best trained individuals on the planet. And included in their training is the ability to follow orders without questioning. So when satellite images created by laying British, Russian, and American surveillance on top of each other showed the path of a car carrying some kid to an apartment suspected to house a mob boss, it took them less than three hours after being told to rescue the aforementioned kid to lay out a plan and get moving. Now they surrounded the house, and were fully prepared to charge in to a crescendo of tear gas. All that remained between this kid and their loving hands were orders on how to approach the other people in the house.

And a guy named Jerome who deserved a free pay day.


	7. Escape

Compared to the United States and its NATO allies, it is generally agreed by security experts that the Russian military is far inferior. Their equipment is older, their ships badly need repair and updated surveillance, and their budget is lower. But there is one area in which Russian forces excel : special operations.

The Russian military invests heavily in small, intensely trained teams of organized, armed forces. Moscow’s teams wore the latest gear, were outfitted in heavy Kevlar body armor, and carried a mix of shorter range guns. They regularly completed anti-terrorist operations and trainings. Building impregnation was focused, and possible. Would it lead to a loss of life? Possibly, but loss of life was not the primary goal of the Ops team.

While the special ops took care to covertly entrench themselves in the surrounding area, Jerome was inside talking to the mobster. Five minutes after the forces arrived, money, computers, and paper trails were bundled together to leave. Someone blindfolded and handcuffed Alex, carelessly flinging him onto a chair within earshot of Molotov gathering his family. Guards and the maid prepared their own belongings to leave.

Twenty minutes after the forces arrived the group was leaving.

\---AR--

Inside a black van down the street from the apartments, temporary CIA agent Sylvester incessantly tapped his fingers. He was appointed for the duration of rescuing Alex Rider, after already being in Russia with the rest of Alex's company. And he was ready to snap Alex's neck.

"Stay out of the fighting," the Russian commander reminded Sylvester. "When we get the boy we'll bring him in here."

"If you get him," Sylvester said. "He might fight you – he's probably unarmed but he's got just as much training as you."

"It's fine," the Russian laughed. "We're the best. Better even than your Western forces. We aren't known for failures."

\---AR---

The maid and Jerome, paid off in full, left minutes before the group was ready to leave. A guard escorted them to the parking lot before choosing the appropriate getaway vehicle and driving it the front of the apartment.

Molotov's wife carried the two nine-month old babies with her to the van a few minutes ahead of time, accompanied by her nine year old son and a second guard holding packed suitcases full of children's clothing and supplies (since the nearest safehouse was built for adults).

Jerome was abundantly clear when he specified that the men were there because of "that kid", and Yassen planned the exit plan around the philosophy that the Russian troops would want to take Alex and get out with minimal loss of life, especially of Molotov's family. "It's bad for their safety if they endanger civilians," he'd said. And the Russian government wouldn't be attempting to completely sever their ties with the mob, if past scrimmages between the KGB and the mafia were examples. So the family and guards sat in the car and waited as the mob leader and his accomplices prepared to leave, using Alex as a shield.

It was hell from the first moment. Yassen was distracted enough that he hadn't noticed Alex slip the handcuffs and blindfold off – or perhaps he thought it was one of the guards, because Alex made no attempt to hide his unbound state once he discarded the accessories, relying on his mannerisms fooling the men into thinking he was supposed to be let alone.

Bullets were fired around them only seconds after they left the door, the Russian special ops unprepared to launch a full out assault but in position to fire on a target. Yassen fired back, holding Alex as a full body shield while Molotov and three more guards decked in SWAT style armor hurried the group along.

When someone released a smoky concoction, Alex took advantage of the chaos and managed to pull free while Yassen was busy forcing a stumbling Molotov forward.

One of Yassen's side fell.

Alex could have gotten away then, it would only have taken another few hundred feet. But suddenly someone had thrown a grenade, and it was seconds away from exploding, and there was Molotov's nine year old son standing there in the middle of the street looking at the thing like it was a new species of lizard. "Move," Alex screamed, but the kid just looked up at him with wide eyes. Did he even know English?

Yassen appeared, running towards Alex. There wasn't time to rescue the kid and escape. Alex changed his path, lunging towards the grenade, and grabbed the boy around his waist and kept running until an explosion pierced the air, throwing him off his feet, and his body landed on the kid.

His eyes watered and ears rang, and he could  _feel_ the pandemonium occurring all around, and the child squirming underneath him crying. His arm and the right side of his face burned, from where he had propelled across the sidewalk landing. Gloved hands grabbed his shoulders and shove-carried him to a black shape in the fog. Wordlessly he was shoved through the door of a van, and a guard inside grabbed his hair, dragging him into the corner and slamming his head against the wall before releasing Alex to fall onto a seat.

Yassen crawled in after, and the van screamed into motion. Across the van the kid looked roughed up but alive, sobbing his eyes out into Molotov's shoulder while the man himself was yelling at two of the guards, asking how his child escaped into the bedlam. Outside bullets sounded, but none met the walls of the van, and only one of Molotov's men was gone while Alex remembered hearing several bodies fall.

"Let me guess," Alex choked out between wheezing gasps. "That was stupid."

Yassen finished buckled himself in, and gestured for Alex to do the same, angrily shaking his head. "Yes, and no."

"Guess it's a good thing it won't happen again, then." Yassen didn't respond. Five miles passed while the children were calmed down, and from the lack of explosions it was clear the special ops lost their tail. Finally able to breathe, Alex looked around.

They were in the back corner of a van that would have naturally fit four rows of three people. Instead someone had modified the inside so that everything behind the driver's row (where the two guards from the front of the apartment yesterday sat) was removed. The sides and windows were reinforced with a bulletproof metallic material (excluding the one door). The seats had been put back in lining the walls, so that two parallel rows of seats faced each other.

Two other guards station themselves across from and beside the door. Molotov and family sat across from several seats filled with suitcases, and then Yassen and Alex occupied the corner.

The mob boss put his son down, buckled him in, and moved himself to the end. With a façade of calm, he looked at Alex, waiting until the boy met his eyes. "Are you satisfied? You used a child as a shield, mentally and physically scarring him for life."

"I didn't -"

"If I have to tell you to be quiet one more time I will burn the words into you." The hair behind his neck stood on end. "I hope you are satisfied, because you will have a long time to consider those actions. When we arrive at the safehouse I am going to take a knife and carve all of the scars you gave my son into your skin, and then I am going to chain you a wall and allow every single member of my entourage a chance to introduce themselves to you. And when that is done we will have a lengthy conversation with knives about the exact details of your bank account."

"Alex didn't hurt your son," Yassen interrupted. Molotov paused and glanced over hatefully. "A soldier threw a grenade near Abhi and Alex pulled him away. He would have escaped if he hadn't saved your son."

Hazel eyes lingered on Alex's scratched face. "You've found yourself a hero, Alexander Rider. I believe you. That doesn't change the fact that my family wasn't in danger before you came."

"Yassen brought me here, and you kept me. I didn't volunteer," Alex whispered. He was lightheaded; the hunger and exhaustion were back in full force now that his burst of adrenaline was defeated. His fingers clenched around the edge of the couch.

Lips curled in disgust, the mobster sneered. "You're pitiful. Stay that way. If you can keep out of trouble the rest of this journey I'll consider the debt of my last dead man erased." Switching to Yassen, "I want your eyes on him at all times."

Yassen shrugged and the man retreated to his family, taking the two babies onto his lap. Alex glanced at Abhi. His mom made a face at the child and he laughed, before seeing Alex. Waving with a smile stretched across his face, he'd forgotten the wounds.

"That was very noble of you," Yassen commented, in such a low voice only Alex could hear, and barely.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment, coming from you?"

"It wasn't an insult." A pause, "But nobility won't get you anywhere."

Alex's eyes dropped, and he0 leaned against the car's side with the left side of face. The stinging on his right side was almost gone, and there wasn't much he could do now. He closed his eyes.

Yassen pulled out a book from his jacket. That stupid, stupid boy.

\---AR----

The driver was weaving in and out of traffic, trying to stay at least twenty miles over the speed limit. Inside the van a Russian kid's radio program was on, and Abhi kept bursting out in laughter, but otherwise a sleepy atmosphere took hold. Yassen's eyes were closed while he reclined.

A baby started mewling, and Alex flinched. The vehicle was pulling off the highway, he noticed. Were they at the safehouse already? Or maybe they needed gas – the colorful fast food icons sticking thirty feet into the air indicated a pitstop instead.

Almost on cue, the mobster's wife was stretching, and she leaned over to ask the two guards closest what they'd like to eat. She was obviously English herself – so Abhi probably understood English. On the other hand, asking a mobster's kid for help was pushing suicide. And no nine year old deserved to discover the hard way their dad was a monster.

Molotov scooted to the back again. "Same as last time, Gregorovich?"

Yassen replied in Russian. Molotov nodded, turning to Alex with a smile that said he wasn't forgotten. "Water for you, I suppose? I doubt you need anything to eat so soon." When Alex was unresponsive, he added "We'll be stopping for the kids and some of the men to use the restroom, but the house is only another two hours away. The government isn't aware of our next point of operations, if you were concerned."

Molotov returned to his wife, who was writing a list of meals.

Clearly he was taunting Alex. Torturing, actually, with close to 36 hours passing without even a cup of water headed his way. It wouldn't do lasting damage, and it didn't create a show to entertain the wife and kids, but it kept him from escaping.

"There wasn't any way for me to bribe your boss to let me go, was there?" Alex asked. "Last night he promised I'd be released if I paid, and the moment I offered he laughed it off."

Yassen's lip curled. "I doubt it. Perhaps if MI6 or your company was willing to pay several million up front an exchange might have occurred."

"But otherwise it was a waste of time to offer a deal, right?" Alex remembered bitterly. The answering silence was affirmation enough.

A moment later the wife and Abhi were back with food – Molotov, the driver, and the babies were still gone. Abhi, still small enough to walk in the van while standing straight up, walked over to Alex. "That explosion was cool. Can we do it again?" He had a slight accent, but his English was perfect – spoken at home, if his mom was an indicator.

Yassen was reclining again. He didn't appear concerned, so what was the harm in responding? "Ask your mom, but I'm guessing not."

"Oh." He frowned. "I can get your food."

"I think I had a water."

"Aren't you hungry?" Abhi asked curiously. Alex's position was obviously not evident.

"A bit," Alex admitted. "But food's expensive, and I don't have any money."

"My dad could buy you food," the child pointed out.

A grimace crossed Alex's face. "He could."

Yassen looked up, and spoke rapidly to Abhi in Russian. The boy nodded and went back to his mother. A moment later he came back with two waters and a bag of food for Yassen. Alex recoiled at the smell. "I wanted to give you some of my food, but my mom says I can't share because then I'll get hungry," Abhi said seriously, handing Alex his water. "I don't think my mom wants us to be friends, either." The boy tilted his head. "Are you bad? My dad said I shouldn't talk to you."

Abhi's mom was glaring at Alex. "If your dad says you shouldn't talk to me then you should listen. Why don't you go back to your mom?"

"The twins are noisy." Abhi wrinkled his nose, indicating how undesirable his siblings were. "You aren't. And I haven't talked to you yet."

Alex looked at Yassen desperately. He couldn't handle this – he wasn't used to kids, let alone one who could have him whipped just for talking. He continued reading. Alex could deal with it, apparently. "I need some sleep Abhi, I'm tired," he hedged.

"You were just asleep," the boy giggled. "You aren't a cat."

"Your parents will get angry at me if we keep talking. I want your parents to like me, so I can borrow some money for food, ok?"

"They'll give you money for food anyway! My parents aren't mean."

"Ok, then, why don't you go ask your mom to get me something," Alex snapped. It hadn't come out harsh, thankfully, at least Abhi didn't look upset, but he was losing control. Not eating he could survive. But stressed out, hungry, and alone while carrying on an idiotic conversation with a child whose parents would have you tortured for disturbing him? Two years of target practice didn't train him for this, and what little experience with children he had boiled down to them wailing while Alex consoled and rescued them.

"Ok," Abhi agreed helpfully, and sidled back to his mom.

"That wasn't wise," Yassen observed. "Asking is only going to guarantee you'll be waiting longer."

"I couldn't think of anything else! If you're so concerned you can tell him to shove off."

Molotov had gotten into the van with the children and driver now, but no one was looking Alex's way. Either he hadn't upset Abhi's mom much or he'd feel it in two hours.

His thumb circled the water bottle cap. If he took a drink now, he might feel even hungrier. On the other hand, if he didn't drink now he could lose the water soon. And Alex couldn't survive much longer without water.

"Drink something," Yassen commanded, annoyed with Alex's fiddling.

"I'm not thirsty, I’m hungry."

Wordlessly Yassen handed him the unopened fast food bag Abhi had brought over. "You won't get anything else today, after your stunt."

"I don't think I was getting anything else anyway, and my  _stunt_ meant saving his son." Alex dug into the food, ignoring a scathing glance Molotov sent his way, and the drive continued on, thankfully, without incidence.

At the safehouse, a church in the middle of an unpronounceable, sprawling suburban city, several men came out to greet the family and escort everyone inside. Yassen kept a strong hold on Alex's arm and dragged him into an administrative building where a homely woman in her late twenties manned security cameras. One of the cameras showing a door to the back rooms briefly featured Molotov's family walking through. "Close your eyes," Yassen admonished, destroying Alex's hope to build a blueprint of the building in his mind.

He was lingering in a dreamlike state, leaning against the wall, when Yassen shook him awake. Startled, Alex looked up and realized the voices he'd taken for a dream conversation were Molotov and Yassen speaking in Russian.

"I'm tired of waiting, Alex," Molotov said, and with two fingers signaled a stocky man into the room. Addressing the guard, he waved at Alex. "Beat him up until he gives you his bank information. I might need him alive for some talks later, so leave his face alone."

"I'll just tell you," Alex offered.

"I imagine you would." Alex tried to plant his feet immovably in the floor.

"Does your wife know what you do? She might object to screaming teenagers in her house, it might wake your kids."

The leader's eyes narrowed. "If you were older you'd understand marriage is a partnership. And I understand you already bothered my son enough today. You won't be given that opportunity again."

"I'd hate to bother anyone – I think he was just thanking me for saving his life after your guards couldn't keep track of him." The unnamed guard moved closer to Alex"I'd hate to bother your guard," Alex gasped as he was grabbed. "The effort of dragging me into an elaborate dungeon only to have me ready to give up everything I know, and then he'll have to go get pen and paper…"

"I'm sure that would be a trouble. Unfortunately, I think you're a bit more resistant than that – thirty minutes before you start giving the details I want? Better men have lasted less time; your struggles were certainly admirable."

"Alex did have a plan that might net more than the contents of his bank account," Yassen suggested, avoiding Alex's glare. "It depending on contacting MI6, if I recall."

"They'd be willing to pay if I was handed over alive," Alex lied, willing himself to believe it. MI6 occasionally did trade prisoners, but hand over money to criminal organizations? Hopefully Jones would play along long enough for Alex to force an escape. Really, any play at time was better than getting beat up and then shot. At this point, Alex was probably dead in the water within a day without foreign intervention. 

"We'll see," Molotov allowed. "Thirty minutes of your time first, though."

Yassen watched as Alex was shoved out of the room. "There's no reason to keep him long. MI6 will pay."

"There's no reason to keep him alive," Molotov responded. "He's seen my family, and my safehouse, and my son will be scarred because of him. I'll keep him a day more and get all that I can out of him, and then he'll be shot."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we're at the point I ended at, in 2013. Upcoming updates will feature a lot of words, me trying to be the same semi-decent writer I was as a highschooler, and maybe some personal writing growth. 
> 
> Also, threats and violence and political drama. An abundance of them.


	8. Pained Relations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I would rather disagree with a case he [President Barack Obama] made on American exceptionalism. … It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.” President Putin, Russia, 2013 (rather later than the events of this story take place, since the events of Stormbreaker happened in roughly 1998 I think?) Either way, this story takes place in the early 2000s. The universe that this happens in is at least slightly different than our own though, as terrorism seems to have a much larger role in the Alex Rider universe. Barely anyone has heard of terrorism now, if I think about it…
> 
> Anyway, sorry that it’s been 4 years.  
> 
> Brief review: Alex, 18 and pretending to be 20, joins a covert ops type team of American military types who run a private security firm mostly sub-contracting jobs from the U.S. government. Yassen Gregorovich, assassin extraordinaire, reappears in the world. Alive, hole-y, and working for the Russian mob. Alex’s team takes a job tracking a scientist who is selling a drug formula to the Russian mob. Alex’s team captures Yassen. Alex doesn’t know what he wants (surprise), so decides to try and sneak up on the man. That doesn’t work (surprise again?), and now Alex is in the hands of a supremely uncaring, formerly dead murderer of uncles, and a Russian mobster who wants Alex violently dead. The situation seems hopeless. There are also international politics relating to prisoner transfers after the American team is caught doing covert ops in Russia, and also Alex has rescued basically everyone on the planet so even the Russian government would like him unharmed and out of the country.
> 
> I personally cannot wait to see how this unfolds.

 

\-----AR-----

Pain.

Blinding pain.

A brief recess from the pain, and then another blow to his head, against a wall, against the edge of a chair.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel his arms, couldn’t feel anything but –

There was a harsh, shrill, beeping across the room. Or a cell, it could be called – it had looked like the inside of the nuclear bunker set the Twilight Zone episodes were fond of using for their apocalyptic episodes a moment ago. Thirty minutes ago, when Alex could see, could hear, could think anything but waves of pain. Vaguely, he registered that it was the beeping of the alarm the mafia crony had set thirty minutes ago.

It felt like so much longer.

He knew this situation wasn’t great. He was on the floor, in a huddled mess against the wall, and shaking and his head was buried in his hands and throbbing and  -

“Up.”

A broad shouldered, heavily accented, sadistic man glowered down at him. If Alex could just _think_ he would realize the man was essentially a walking Russian meme. He was wearing a track suit. He was wearing a fucking tracksuit and had muscles that looked like he worked out twelve hours a day then took roids the other half of the day.

The man kicked his side, not too hard. The sadist was probably bored of beating him up by now. “ _I think you_ _’_ _re a bit more resistant than that_ _–_ _thirty minutes before you start up the details I want?_ _”_ Molotov had phrased the words like a question, as if it were a matter of Alex resisting the orders. Alex would have given the gangster his account information. He would have paid just about anything to stop the beating, knowing that it was hopeless and he was never going to use the rest of the money anyway. He would be shot soon, maybe by Gregorovich as some kind of twisted end to the Rider Chronicles. He was in a hopeless situation, worse than the other times Alex had found himself captive. Which, again, hadn’t happened in three years. Three fucking years of being a not kidnapped person, not shivering in pain. Not being exhausted and hungry and shaking like a drowned child spy.

“Up!”

“I’m –“ Alex broke off, a dry cough wracking him. _I_ _’_ _m bloody trying._ The man looked about ready to kick him again, but took a step back for Alex to push himself against a wall.

“ _Vite._ _”_ The man was speaking French now, giving up on English. More Russians learned French than English in school, or at least they had at one point, Alex remembered learning. He didn’t remember too much French from living in France years ago with Ian, or from lessons at school, but vite was clear – _quickly._ Molotov wanted Alex to give his banking info, to pay for the men Alex had, well, done nothing to, but the men were dead because of his team and now Alex was the fucking hostage and…

And then the door opened and _he_ stepped in. Holding what looked like a cup of coffee in each hand. The sadistic _killer_ who didn’t look the least surprised to see a shaking mess on the floor. “Alex,” Yassen said, nodding his way.

Alex looked at the man, and at the ground again. At the man again. Just because Alex was shaking and cold and hungry and beaten didn’t mean he couldn’t look at the person who had done it to him. Maybe not personally, but Yassen had done it, the same as when he shoved Alex out to face a bull dressed as a matador at fourteen.

 _It was stupid, beyond words, what Alex had done, going after the man. He hadn_ _’_ _t contacted Alex after waking from a coma, he knew John had betrayed him, he had been willing to torture a pair of teenagers to satisfy Damien Cray, and he was just_ **better** _at this. Better at killing, better at kidnapping, better at destroying people._

Yassen was now exchanging words, Russian, with the one mafia man who had actually tortured Alex for the past 30 minutes. The man reacted angrily, arguing. The assassin was…nonplussed. Unfazed. Unconcerned at whatever it was he was saying, or message he was passing along.

“Is this about me, or do you just not care that I could know Russian.” The words are difficult, his head hurts so much, but he deserved to know if one of them is about to kill him. And if the words aren’t about him, then they’re going to kill him, because they don’t seem concerned about witnesses, and a dark underground nuclear bunker was not the place to take bets on who was going to win a game of football.

“You don’t know Russian.” Yassen glanced at him, once over, and returned to his conversation. As if Alex was not worth more than the single breath a response took.

“YA znayu russkiy yazyk ,“ Alex muttered. Torturing henchman number one looked about ready to kick him again, and Alex’s head was definitely within his range, but Yassen held up a mug, distracting the now definitely pissed henchman with a drink.

“There’s been a stay of execution.” Yassen was fully focused on him now.

“Mine? I didn’t know your dog boss was planning to kill me.” _I guessed it,_ Alex thought, but knowing implied there had been a discussion and a definite order given.

Yassen nodded. “He wanted you dead after his son was hurt. I suggested death may be a bit rash.” Quirked eyebrow. “You could provide some entertainment while we wait for things to settle down. I suggested a few games.”

“Fuck you.” It was halfhearted, Alex knew, but he didn’t care. His head hurt so much, and now there was more.

“My employee feels the same.” Yassen flicked his gaze to murderous Russian gangster 1, and back again. “He wanted to watch a sports match.”

“Oh, let the poor man watch his game,” Alex mumbled. “I can wait. What’s the fun in beating someone unconscious?”

The two Russians conversed again. The henchman sipped his coffee dourly, but the next few words changed his mood immensely: better news for his desired night off. The henchman barked a laugh, smirked at Alex, and sauntered off to his game.

And now it was just the two of them.

Well, sod Gregorovich. Alex didn’t have anything to say. _I suggested a few games._ Fight a bull, tear out his eyes, sip acid? Malagosto had almost certainly taught a few instructive lessons that could be turned into a night on the Russian gangster hideout if someone felt the need.

“This is for you. You should drink it.” Yassen was holding out the remaining cup of probably coffee maybe agonizing poison to Alex, and holding his other hand out to help Alex up.

“No.”

“You’re shaking. It will help.”

“Your heart would be shaking if it existed. You fucking drink it.”

Yassen dropped his hand to help Alex up, leaving the cup extended. “It’s not poison.” No reaction was forthcoming, and the Russian tilted an eyebrow and took a sip. “Not poisonous. And very hot.”

Alex didn’t take it. “You gave your boss ideas.”

Yassen looked around the room. Nuclear bunkers were a remnant of his childhood. He vaguely remembered drills at his village, everyone covering in a bunker, sometimes the boys his age playing while parents exchanged scared looks.  It would be big enough for a target practice later that week, perhaps. Train recruits. Let his boss’s children run around. “They won’t be fun for you.”

“None of this has been.” Alex took a breath, looked at the floor, and realized he was not far from crying. He had never handled exhaustion with the best composure. _Deep breath in, deep breath out. This is not a man to cry in front of. He doesn_ _’_ _t get to see you beg, or cry, or feel pain._ Gregorovich, the fucking bastard, wasn’t even looking at him. _This might be the last time we_ _’_ _re alone._

“I thought I was glad you were alive.” He impressed himself with how level he thought his voice sounded. Honestly, with the pain it was hard to tell. “When I heard you survived. I thought I was glad.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Alex reached up to his face, rubbed away something wet from his eyes. _It seemed better to pretend it was blood than to admit he was crying in front of the man he had come to kill, maybe; the person who had destroyed his family, and was now going to kill him, painfully._ “I wanted to see you. You were the only one who knew my dad, and you turned the man who killed them. Him and my mom. You sent me to people who wanted to kill me. It was a bad idea.”

“A bad idea to find me? Yes, it won’t turn out well for you.” It was hard to tell from tone if that was an accusation, a dry joke, or just an observation.

“You’re going to torture me.” It wasn’t a question.  Gregorovich nodded in confirmation anyway. Alex felt like giggling, hysterically. He was actually admitting that he had wanted to find the man, and in response he was going to be hurt, and killed. “Do you hate my dad that much?”

There was a pause. “I never hated John.”

“Just me then.”

“No.”

“Just think it would be amusing to torture me for a few days,” Alex said, tiredly. “Do I get to die after that or are you still threatening to sell me?”

Gregorovich knelt down next to him. The coffee was pressed into his hands, and shaking as he was, with fear or tiredness or pain, he took it. Held it tightly. It was hot, like promised. That was something.

“I suggested entertainment that might take the place of having you shot.” Meaning, Alex supposed, that this was Gregorovich’s version of a favor. His life over his pain.

 “That doesn’t mean anything if I don’t get a chance to leave.” He drank, mostly to calm his shaking. Someone who liked rocket fuel must have made it. The coffee was dark enough to bite the end off his pain, or cover it for a moment.

“I think the American government wants you badly enough to press for your release. The mafia exists with a certain…leeway from the government. Organized crime can help them.” _The government doesn_ _’_ _t have the resources to tackle the mafia, truly,_ was implied.

“So you’re going to torture me until I get rescued? How sweet.”

The silence was an answer. “How long?”

“Until a deal is worked out?” Yassen considered. “Maybe not long. Maybe longer.”

 “Maybe longer.”

Yassen nodded. “Maybe 3 weeks.”

“This was 30 minutes.” He felt so sick, so unable to compete with a younger him. A younger him had had a purpose – save the world. That was a need. He had needed to survive, to complete the missin. Alex didn’t need this…didn’t need to survive.  “I can’t do it. Just let him kill me, just shoot me. I can’t do it, whatever you told him to do.” Yassen was frowning at him. “What, do you want me to thank you? You told me you wouldn’t save me, now I’m asking you to just _kill me._ Is that too much to ask, fucker?”

Gregorovich just looked at him. Alex couldn’t handle it. Why did he get to act disappointed? Was he? _Just let me sleep, just let me go home._

“Is this revenge? You get shot for me, I entertain your boss for weeks? My dad betrays you and you write your name on me with a knife or some other twisted _game?_ Are you going to make me play chess, and then cut off a finger every game I lose? You hate me that much?” He was tired, so tired, but he was also so hysterical, and so done, and so ready to just get it out.

“I don’t hate you,” Yassen repeated.

“Not hate then, indifference. But that’s not it, because you’ve been acting like you don’t care but you do. You threatened me, you planned this, you hurt me. Spite. Anger. You just want to see me beaten up. Starved and kicked and scared.” The coffee was good, and right now it was the only distraction.  He was taking sips between sentences, trying to calm down, but Yassen kept listening, not interrupting, finally paying attention. He wasn’t texting this time.

“Not indifference. I thought I could be, but not towards you.” It was an honest answer, at least. “I want to see you learn a lesson,” Yassen said. “Have you learned one?”

“Shoot before sadists kidnap you?” Exhaustion was taking his head in waves almost as strong as the pain of the kicks and punches to his head.

Yassen smiled. “Don’t invade Russia from the west?”

It was funny, darkly, although Alex wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of laughing. “Fantastic. I’ve learned it. I’ve had enough. Are we done now?”

 “No.” He pushed Alex’s head down slightly, and Alex felt fingers gingerly moving his hair aside, at the back of his head. “This will bruise, but I doubt you have a concussion.” Alex winced, from pain or fear or both. “Alex,” Yassen said, voice soft, “You will survive this. I will not be the one who kills you. Is that clear?”

Alex stared at his coffee, head still bowed, and considered responding. _Would he?_

\---AR---

“The raid was…not successful.” The government messenger pronounced each word carefully, though a thick accent. “Leader got away, your man was not found.”

“Did they see him?” Sylvester pressed. “Or Gregorovich?”

“I am sorry.” The Russian messenger shrugged. “I do not know.”

“You don’t know, or you can’t say?”

“I do not know.”

DC met Ayad’s eyes. _He_ _’_ _s lying._ “Is Gregorovich still alive?”

“We did not find his body.”

“How about the mafia leader? Molotov?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you know anything else?” Ayad asked.

“No. I am sorry.”

The assembled Americans watched the man leave, giving nothing else away. The guards retreated to the hallway outside after them, leaving only the Americans in their semblance of privacy.

“I need a shower,” Ayad announced, and stalked to the restroom. Harris, Sylvester, DC, James, and Lowery glanced between themselves. Most of them would need to be the distraction right now.

“Poker?”

A chorus of yeses filled the room – and the bugs. Harris slunk over to the restroom, and slipped inside. Heat and loud water pummeled out of the shower head. Ayad gestured him over. Harris sat down near the base of the shower, where the noise was loudest, and Ayad joined him. In whispers, they summed up what they knew. “So what do we know?”

“Alex might not be alive. They wouldn’t tell us if it went badly – not right away.”

“Gregorovich is alive. They’d tell us if they killed him, or captured him. To brag, probably.”

“We can’t do anything if Alex is dead. If he’s alive, though, he might be in good shape still. The mafia could want to trade him.”

“Gregorovich said he’d let his captives go, and he let Brandon go a couple days ago – the Russians said Brandon was almost here anyway.”

“He didn’t let Alex go though. He had the time.”

Ayad paused, didn’t want to say it. _If Gregorovich was going to release one of them, it should have been Brandon. Alex was the one that got them into this position._ “I still don’t understand how this happened. How did Gregorovich get Alex? The kid’s not an idiot, he’s never done something this stupid. Going blind into a room of captives with no reason, and letting himself be unarmed? It doesn’t make sense.”

“So there was a reason,” Harris whispered. “We don’t know it, but there had to be one.”

“There was a reward, for Gregorovich. Doesn’t sound like Alex, but maybe he needed the money?”

Harris scoffed. “And what, make a getaway with Gregorovich in the middle of Russia? He’s been solid for two years, he wouldn’t try to betray us now.”

“Then what?” Thoughts that they’d been mulling over for three days kept turning over, all as implausible as another. Alex was going crazy, Alex wanted to see if he could barter with an assassin, Alex had a personal vendetta against an international assassin, Alex had a secret romantic affair with the contract killer, Alex was suicidal and wanted to end his life.

“Something’s missing,” Harris said. “We’re missing something, something that’s going to explain it. We have to be. As soon as we figure out what it is, we can figure out what kind of trouble he’s gotten himself into. In the meantime, I want to figure out if there’s a way out. Any escape from these guards.”

“We don’t want to create an international incident.” Ayad was troubled. “Right now is the best case scenario, considering the Russians. We upset them at any point, we could be in jail. A real one, not this hotel.”

“I’m not committing us to anything, just want to evaluate the options. Because right now, our options are shit.” With those final words, Harris stood up, and went to switch with Sylvester at the poker game. One by one, the group would catch up to date on the plan.


	9. Battle Fatigue

**“In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After 'Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder.”**  
  
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs  


 

“You suggested some things.” Alex drowned the rest of coffee, needing the energy  to hear what was going to happen. ”What?”

Yassen shook his head. “You’ll find out when my boss wants you too.”

“Right now?” _He couldn_ _’_ _t do it._

Pale eyes, considering him. “No.” It looked like Yassen had just decided this. Maybe the coffee was intended to keep Alex awake through more….maybe it was mean to be poured scalding hot on his head. Maybe it hadn’t been for him at all. “I think you need sleep.”

“I need food.” It was true. He was going to sleep tonight, whatever sadistic thing was planned for the morning. His head hurt. He hadn’t really slept in two days…close to three at this point. But Molotov was planning on starving him, considering the previous actions. Yassen…wasn’t. He’d got him food on the road, he’d fed Alex on the way here, he looked even now not particularly put out that the teenager needed to _eat just like anyone else._

 “I think you will be less trouble if you’re sick, which you will be if you don’t get enough food and water.” Yassen considered him. “Get up.” He was standing, and turning towards the door.

Alex forced himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall behind him. a hand gripped his shoulder and taking him out of the old nuclear bunker room and into a dim hallway – windows covered by drawn curtains, although it had to be dark outside anyway. The coffee cup wasn’t in his hand anymore, and he was being led to a room, not a cell, maybe they didn’t have cells in this old church building of a safehouse. “Do all church safehouses have a nuclear bunker or just the ones covering for mobsters?” he muttered woozily, under his breath, audible enough for Yassen to hear. There was a woman up ahead, sitting in an upholstered armchair in a common space. The hallway was ending and Alex could see a kitchen next the common space.

The woman in the armchair, the same homely maid Alex had seen at the safehouse, held a baby. She ignored Alex, unconcerned and uncaring that he was clearly in pain…somehow Yassen holding his arm had become leaning against the man and being gripped by the neck tightly enough to hurt. Yassen asked her a question, in Russian, and she nodded towards the kitchen.

It was an alcove kitchen – the sort that could be used by people working at an office or doing day work at a church. Yassen deposited Alex in a chair and sat across from him. The woman came inside, baby in tow. She asked Alex something in Russian, and for a second Alex thought the pain in his head was what was stopping him from understanding – but no, just a language barrier. His head wasn’t that gone yet, maybe. Yassen responded for him, and she nodded and moved towards the cabinets and fridges, pulling out equipment and some supplies. She moved with purpose, one arm around the baby now at her hip, another pulling out a knife to chop vegetables.

“Did she ask me what I wanted?” Alex muttered. Yassen wasn’t there. Alex blinked. Yassen was moving across the room, pulling out what might have been teabags. _What was the point of beatings_ _…_ _just keep him awake and Alex would be in agony._

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, she asked what you wanted.”

“You could of asked me.” Alex knew he was drifting off, was in and out of alertness. This could be a trick, he could fall asleep before food was served, Yassen could slip Alex’s fingers on the chopping block in a minute and have the woman’s knife slicing off a finger instead of chopping onions, he could be screaming soon.

“You wouldn’t have known the options. Unless you took a course on Russian cooking at some point.” Yassen was definitely making tea, he had water in a pot and was starting the gas. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I think the expression is.”

“Mmh.” Alex put his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. _Just a moment._ There was a loud cry, and Alex forced his eyes awake _just another second_ and there was food. Yassen was engaged in a book, again, and the maid was speaking softly in Russian to the baby. Molotov’s son, Alex realized hazily, or maybe a daughter, because he couldn’t remember if the gangster had said and the child was too young to tell. Maybe this was the baby whose rattle Alex had taken. He could feel the wood pressed against his side, tucked into his pocket, now that he thought about it. Nothing that would protect him really, yet its presence offered some reassurance.

The food, potatoes of some sort and a stew, looked amazing. “Thank you,” Alex said, as the maid looked ready to leave. She looked at him, looked through him, and clutched the baby to her and left.

Yassen looked up from the book, at her retreating back. “She thinks you are a dead boy walking. It can be bad luck to talk to the dead, with these people.”

“These people being Russians?”

“Dangerous Russians.”

After eating, Alex washed his plate. He could feel the man regarding him.  “What?” It was meant to sound angry, he knew at the back of his mind.  It sounded exhausted.

“I don’t know where to put you.”

“Tie me up in a closet somewhere, I think is the usual response.” Alex put the plate on a drying rack and leaned against the wall, too drained for this. He wasn’t helping to find a place to tie him up before whatever horrors awaited tomorrow. He could sleep here.

“I don’t think you would like that.” Yassen’s tone is neutral, but there is clearly some meaning to his words. Alex regards him. It takes a minute. Thoughts jump to fears, to the thoughts of the things he’s been dreading. “You think someone would rape me.” There’s a pit in his stomach and he’s not sure whether he wants the truth.

“Mmmh.” The man shrugs. “It wasn’t what I suggested today.” Blue eyes meeting his.

“You still suggested it,” Alex says, and he’s not angry or surprised at this point, just numb. Scared. _Would he rather be raped or be blind? Why is this choice so easy to make?_ “You said you would make me choose. Yesterday. The day before yesterday.”

“Yes.” He doesn’t sound apologetic. “I wasn’t serious.”

“I’ll fight.” _I_ _’_ _m too tired to fight._

“I wouldn’t expect you not to.” Yassen shrugs, again, and if Alex wasn’t so totally dependent on the man to not be dead he would be throwing something, insults or plates or large and sharp knives.

“Don’t let them,” and it’s obvious that he’s scared, and Yassen doesn’t look surprised and Alex can’t tell if he’s planning on letting it happen or if he will actually _do something_ now that his _not serious_ suggestion is apparently a likely scenario. Yassen is still looking at him, considering. “Please.”

_He isn_ _’_ _t going to stop them_. He has to. _He doesn_ _’_ _t hate me that much._ “It’s time to go to sleep, “ Yassen says, and it isn’t a no. Alex follows, dreading, too tired to be any real fight to someone who might want to try and – although they’d have a gun, and it wouldn’t be a fight anyway. They’d just take.

The halls and stairways pass too quickly for Alex to memorize them and soon he’s in a room, a plain bedroom with 3 beds, maybe a former missionary bedroom if Russian Orthodox churches had missionaries, and there’s a duffel bag on the ground that lets Alex know this is where Yassen planned to stay. There’s another man in the room, sleeping on the far bed, next to a small window. Too small to climb out of. Yassen says something, loudly, and the man rolls out of bed, wakes up, looks disgruntled, is taking his things and leaving. Before he leaves, he looks at Alex and makes a comment. The implications are clearly lewd – it doesn’t matter, because if he’s following this correctly then this is the assassin’s answer, that _no,_ he doesn’t plan to let Alex be raped because of some lessons he thought Alex needed. He sits on the middle bed, waiting for, what, permission to sleep? He might fall asleep before it comes.

The man who killed his family is looking at him, and Alex doesn’t even have a faint idea about what new horror Gregorovich might plan for him. “Are we done? Or are you going to watch me fall asleep like a forty year old creep?” _Probably another bad idea, fighting still._

  “There will be questions,” Yassen says.  “Why I changed my room to a private one, why you are in that room with me instead of, how you suggested, left in a small closet where anyone could access it.” Alex swallows. This tone is not the tone of the man who was making a joke earlier. A strong hand is suddenly under Alex’s chin, forcing his head up, forcing eye contact. There are nails biting into the side of his face.

“I don’t hate you, Alex, but there are things I cannot allow. A little boy chases me with a gun, once, and is taught his mistake. I can forgive that.” Pause. “You are not a little boy.”

“Do you still talk to the Pleasures?” The question comes from nowhere, in Alex’s mind. Suddenly he is hyper aware, fast rushing thoughts trying to fight uphill through the muddied track of a brain in slow motion. There’s a force near his throat. “You are close to a man I was paid to kill, and a girl who I allowed to live before being shot. And now you are back, chasing me to my country with a gun.” Another pause, long, silent. Yassen’s hand tight on his face. “You are going to transfer your money into my name, and I am going to fix my mistake. I will pay for the man to be killed. I will pay for your friend Sabina to be raped, and shot. I will do this using your money, and it will be your fault.” Yassen looks at him, loosens his grip. His hand is light pressure, almost gentle. “Convince me not to.”

He remembers Julius, taunting him with Jack moments away from death. _Everyone he loved was going to die because of him this isn_ _’_ _t real it_ _’_ _s a story this is real this is -_

“If someone asks you why I had you in my room all night, you will say you spent all night bargaining for my mercy.” Yassen considers him. “You were not particularly convincing, and tomorrow night I imagine will be the same. You’ll beg for me not to kill your friend, you’ll cry, you’ll offer to hurt yourself, and maybe I will make you. I’ll tell you the longer that you stay awake the less likely I am to hurt your friends, and you’ll resort to violent games to keep yourself awake.”  

Finally the man’s hand drops and Alex is alone on the bed, cold and without support in what had to be almost the worst country in the world for sort of American spies.

 “Goodnight Alex.”

\----AR-----

“Yes, sir.”

The room stirred, warily. The five men around the long table doodled on their notes, nervously drank their water and coffee, nudged at the floor with their feet. The one woman, perfectly coiffed in her pearl necklace and sky blue suit, coughed for attention. The president glanced at the National Security Advisor, but did not yield the questions yet.

“Repeat that answer for me. You’re saying that the Russian mob has access to a drug formula that could be twice as addictive as opium, and we invented it.” The president leaned forward, eyes widened incredulously. “Answer my question, son, and don’t, whatever you do, make it complicated.”

Marvin Gruber grimly nodded. “Yes, sir. We did. We invented the formula when looking into cures for chronical pain. We quickly became aware, during the test period, what we had actually created.

“Well, gentlemen,” the President nodded at the woman, “and ladies. This situation is going to need a solution.”

The Secretary of State wrote a few things in his notepad, and passed a note to his undersecretary across the table. “We completed a covert extraction attempt against the Russian mafia at 00:23 Eastern Standard Time, or 8:23 Moscow Standard Time. It was not successful – both the captured American security personnel and the drug formula were spirited away during the invasion. The captured agent has worked for the C.I.A. in the past, and we believe he will try whatever he needs to escape, but we don’t have an update on his condition.”

“Colin, do we have an update on the agent’s location?”

The Secretary of State shook his head. “Former agent. He worked with us in the past, before this administration. And no, we don’t know. Not close to Moscow, we think.”

The National Security Advisor coughed again. “How long?”

“Ma’am?”

“How long until the drug is released? How long until the public knows? Can we avoid the release?”

The scientist shifted uneasily. “When our former colleague Rousseau left for Europe, he left some gaping holes in security. He left a note saying that he had uploaded the formula and other information onto a private server, and the information would be leaked if anything happened to him.”

“Rousseau’s body was found in Eastern Russia, abandoned.” Colin added, grimly. “We have another member of the private security team we had hired who saw the murder, and gave the Russians enough of an idea of the location for them to find Rousseau’s corpse quickly.”

“This will be a scandal if it breaks.” The president surveyed the room, eyes settling on the C.I.A. representative. “Can we get a message to our team on the ground? And can we get them out?”

“Don’t know, sir. We’re working on it now.”

“Keep working. Update me as soon as we hear back – we’re going to need them.”

\---AR---

Yassen Gregorovich hadn’t slept. He didn’t normally sleep long – four hours, perhaps, on a normal day. Five hours on occasion. Increasingly, with age and after the coma, there were nights when six hours would pass before he woke, energized and ready to go on a run. He had been lazy with his languages lately, he knew, and his Arabic would not pass for a fluent speaker. After a long stint in Saudi Arabia, there had been a time when his words in the language would flow smoothly, like a poet reciting the Quran. The extra time he slept cut into his practice, however, and he had listened to an Arabic news report on opium a week ago, only to realize some words were unfamiliar, although the dialect was not.

Pages of script, right to left, covered the small desk by the fireplace. At some point Yassen would have to build a fire, the room was poorly heated. The quarters had used to belong to Coptic monks, he believed, and doubtless their devotion to the lord had allowed them to suffer the chills of Russian winters with little complaint. If they did complain, it could always be penance for their sins.

Men of god had always found excuses for suffering, in Gregorovich’s experience. He remembered a night, years ago, not long after John had abandoned him. Infiltrating a monastery in search of a former leader of the Serbian genocide, leaving the monastery with one less monk breathing, spending a lonely Christmas right afterwards traipsing through Eastern Europe to pick up the trail of a former KGB agent. In those days, many cases SCORPIA took were personal vendettas against decidedly evil men. It had helped, in the few moments when Yassen had felt flashes of empathy or morality, to know that he was killing mostly those that the world would be better off without. Years ago, when he had first begun his career, even after his first murder, there had been moments of regret. Pain. Sorrow for the family life he remembered in his youth, and the moments of joy training with John.

Yassen leaned back, looked over his work, checking for errors in his print. Enough thinking of the past. He still had a future. Practicing another language would help ensure he kept it. Perhaps he would find an excuse to meet with some of the Afghani businessmen currently engaged in opium smuggling with the mafia. He could use the language practice, and the challenge of a new dialect. If he needed to disappear from the mafia, new countries would be opened fully for him to disappear into.

First, though…Yassen looked back. The boy, the young man, in the middle bed had barely moved all night. Low, constant breaths assured that he was asleep, and for once not in danger or endangering the people around him.

_John would not be asleep now._ Yassen could not imagine, remembering the father, that John Rider would fall asleep if he had a captor threatening such things against his adoptive family. Even if his captor was lying, was telling a story. But John Rider was a man with little qualms when it came to country and family. He would persevere.

It was unfair to compare little Alex, perhaps not so little but still, the more Yassen saw, imminently breakable Alex, to a man so long dead. Perhaps it was not a fair comparison – perhaps John _would_ be asleep, conserving and gathering his strength. Perhaps it would make more sense to compare the boy to his uncle, but Yassen had not known the man. Had met him only briefly, before firing the gun that put the spy in his grave.

Alex was asleep five minutes after Yassen had told him the bedtime story of what Alex was “actually” doing. He had stared, hadn’t moved for a minute or two, and then he had crawled under the covers, hid his head, and fallen asleep.  _He was a fool to challenge men twice his age and stronger than him, and he was a trusting fool to fall asleep without even trying to put himself in a defensive position or a place where he could see if he opened his eyes instead of hiding away under the covers,  or he was broken so easily that lack of sleep and hunger let him abandon his guard, and threats made him curl in himself._ No, Yassen thought, shaking his thoughts. _Not broken. A broken boy would not save a child when he could have escaped instead._ Just a foolish boy, _foolish enough to think that Yassen would protect him now, after a coma and captivity and a lost year of his life._

There was a buzz, a drone of a phone. Molotov was awake. Or his wife was. She was the one who had decided, ultimately, that Alex would be more valuable alive. Molotov had decided that Alex would be _fun_ alive, perhaps after some creative prodding from Yassen. His wife was more practical. In many ways, she was the brains of the place. Powerful women in Russia often hid their ambitions and power behind powerful men, and Elena Molotova was not the exception.

_“_ _You think that the authorities will force our hand? We surrender him or they chase us?_ _”_ _She had demanded, angry. She was proud of her son, her small boy that Alex had saved. She did not see Alex save the child, but she knew that her son was hurt because of a raid that happened only due to the British spy._

_“_ _I don_ _’_ _t know. They might._ _”_ _It was the truth then, and the truth now. If Alex was lucky the authorities would continue to demand him alive. A dead body might become a sickle chopping the thread of friendship between the government and the mafia. If he was unlucky_ _…_ _perhaps the authorities would not care if they found pieces of an unidentified body in the woods around Moscow, or another large city._

Yassen picked up the phone, looked at the message. It was time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are real people in the President's Cabinet, based on positions at the time. Can you match whole names with the people?


	10. Questions

**“** **You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one.** **””**

**-Sibel Edmonds**

DC looked up from the news. He was one of the fluent Russian speakers in the group, and him and Sylvester had been monitoring the news for hours for suspicious activity. “They’re not saying anything about the mafia on here. It’s typical stuff, problems on the Georgian border, women in the workforce, economy picking up, some problems in Chechnya.”

“Drug problems,” Sylvester pointed out, wryly. “That’s not going to get better now that Gregorovich has the formula.”

“And Alex.” Ayad paused in his pacing, fists clenched. “I still haven’t figured it out. If we get him back, I’m going to need a serious explanation before he’s watching my back again.”

A knock at the door interrupted the talk before it spiraled into true negativity. “Yes?”

“We have your friend,” One of the guards announced.  

 “Hey boys.” Brandon entered, smiling sheepishly, and enveloped Harris in a bear hug before the commander could say anything. One of the guards at the door smiled, empathetic for the American reunion.

“Where’s Jackson?”

“Receiving medical care. He’s going to be out of commission for a while – his shoulder might not fully heal, but they’re hopeful. Our hosts,” Harris nodded to the guards, “said they’re probably going to have him sent home in a day. They already sent home Chase.”

“Nice of them.” Brandon moved on. “Sylvester, you holding up?”

“I’m good. You? Where you been?”

“Absolute shit.” Brandon smiled cheerily. “Almost ended up a popsicle not far from where we started out in the east, got picked up by some super entertained cops, was held in a cell for 10 or so hours, interrogated another 10, put back in the cell, and finally, ending up here. I want to see my sister, and I need to brush my teeth. First thing won’t happen for a while, I’m guessing, but at least I’ll finally get a hot shower.”

“And Alex?” Ayad tried to sound more concerned than murderous.

“Alive when I saw him. A little scared, maybe.” Brandon’s smile faded. “He’d have a pretty good reason to be. Rousseau’s dead. Gregorovich shot him, and he dropped me off with the body in the middle of a dark road. He told me to walk back to a gas station we passed a while back, that they’d have a place for me to call out.”

“Gregorovoch still has him. The Russians tried to get him back in a raid, but they botched it.”

Troubled, Brandon absorbed the information. “Do we know how this started? Or why?”

The men glanced around the circle, deciding not to mention the many conspiracy theories they’d tossed around, yet. “No.”

“I might be able to help.” Brandon glanced around to see if he had everyone’s attention. “Did anyone call Alex by his name around Gregorovich?”

“No,” James said with certainty. “We didn’t call anyone by name. If we did, we would have called him by his codename.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Brandon said. He weighed his words, considered how to phrase it without making any assumptions. “Gregorovich knows him. And since Alex went in blind, without telling anyone, I’m guessing Pleasure knows him too.”

“How do you know?”

“He called Alex by name,” Sylvester said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Brandon nodded. “Gregorovich made me get out of the car with the American. He shot the American, and he told me to get walking, that there would be help down the road. And then he said, and I think this is verbatim, ‘Rider will be released in a day, if he cooperates. If my boss is feeling generous.’”

“Rider,” James said. “I thought Pleasure was his last name.”

“He changed his name,” DC said. “A while back, he told me. Three years ago, when he became an adult, so when he was eighteen.”

“I thought he was 22 now? That’d be four years ago.”

“No, he’s just 20,” Sylvester cut in.

Harris felt his stomach turning. This wasn’t good news. Forget the confusion about Alex’s age or last name. Gregorovich had said he would release Alex in a day, three and a half days ago. And now there was an international conflict involving coordination between the American and Russian governments, and no one would admit to knowing where Alex was in all of the chaos.

“How do you think they know each other?”

“They have to know each other from years ago,” Ayad said. He looked scared, for the first time. Most of today he had been pacing, whispering insults against Alex’s continued existence and his manhood. With the new revelations, fear for Alex spread across his face. “Gregorovich called him Rider, and he goes by Pleasure now – what kind of shit was Alex in 4 years ago? Joining the mob at 16?”

“I think we might want to call Carter and Hyde,” Brandon said. “Find out some more about Alex. And what exactly he was doing before he joined us.”

\------AR------

“The government made a choice, the moment they sent men to our house. Armed men, with weapons pointed at our children.” Moldova glared at her husband. “The moment we were weak enough to let them think they could try to take us out over one American life.”

“They did.” He met his wife’s glare.

“What will we do about it?”

“Oh, many things.” Lazily, he crossed his legs. “I ordered several known infiltrators from the government shot, and their bodies will be left to be found. Drugs are being spiked, I am deciding a few men to assassinate, and I am already close to figuring out who placed the final order to attack. I will kill their children. We shouldn’t be rash, though, darling. The government will want us back. And soon. I talked to Gregorovich about the infiltrators I wanted dead. We decided to keep some alive, for the information feeding. It is better for us.”

“ _You_ were rash, to leave their bodies behind.” Molotova snapped. “Disappear them, and the government will think they have lost secrets to torture or lost men to bribes. Now, they will know that it was only retaliation for a poor choice.”

“Yassen suggested the same.”      

“You should have listened.”

“We will want them back, the government. No – stop, you are angry. You think he is smarter than me, on this decision, but wait. They invaded our family house and that is unforgiveable, but we cannot win a war against the government. This is not Yeltsin’s weak government. They are strong now, and pushing out the men they don’t like. We shot the men so that it _was_ an obvious revenge for their action; they won’t try it again, and we can continue to invest resources in growing our leadership. With Dvoskin and Gizya in prison, there is room to grow our arm of the mafia. Room to expand and push out this new compound we just bought.”

“Someone has to pay. And not just the boy. He’s a tool, an excuse. All this shows is that some favor to the president is enough to convince the government to push us. These fools would never have tried anything three months ago.” With a final glare, the woman left. Tonight, she would sleep alone.

\---AR—

The women in white masks, white hairnets, and white uniforms did not speak to each other. They were here for one reason that all of them knew, and none of them wanted to discuss. Talking to each other would only arise suspicion from the two men with machine guns, overseeing the operation.

Two women measured out bleach into water pails, and distributed them to the others. A few began mopping the warehouse, another few dipped sponges into their pales and began on the walls. The dusty space had been abandoned for two years before being bought by a rich businessman, the manufacturer of women’s clothing for several former Soviet Union countries. Now it was time to prepare the previously left empty hangar for a new purpose, one that would be masked by the comings and goings of clothing production.

A new drug was entering Russia, and the warehouse would be ready soon.

\---AR---

“Up,” the voice said, and Alex was awake and in discomfort, low pain, reminders in the back of his head, and his shin, and his arms, and his stomach that yesterday he had been beaten for _saving a child from an explosion._

“I’m up.” Someone, someone he didn’t want to see, was pulling back the covers.

“We have a meeting.”

“A meeting.” Alex was looking, purposely, not at the man next to him.  Anywhere but. The room was fairly small, and a gold painting of a saint hung over a fireplace across from him, that he’d barely noticed last night. “Discussing finances, are we? Annual bank statements? Discussing the firing of new employees? Doing taxes? Writing new customer service regulations. Meeting Linda from H.R.?”

“One of those, yes,” Yassen agreed.

“What?”

“You’ll see.” Yassen was gesturing to the bed the mafia henchman had been sleeping in last night when they came in. There were different clothes there, clean clothes, and a toothbrush.

“Best to be presentable, huh?” Alex went and picked up the clothes, anyway. This wasn’t new. “Why does every psychopath want to dress me? Does it make it more civilized to torture me when I look like a _real boy_ instead of a beat up dog?”

“Your words, not mine.” Gregorovich smirked at that.

“Great.” Alex looked at the toothbrush. “Am I supposed to brush my teeth, or file this into a shiv and stab myself?” He looked across the room, and the evil overlord in the room didn’t seem to understand. “I just spent a night groveling for you not to kill Sabina, _apparently,_ and I offered to hurt myself, for your sick amusement.” He wasn’t starting off the day on a positive foot, but the man didn’t deserve one. _He doesn_ _’_ _t get thanks for stopping molestation. It_ _’_ _s just decency, really._ “I don’t know about you, but if my boss told me to watch some kid, some _child hurting monster,_ _”_ (the stress Alex placed on those words was intentional, and Yassen’s narrowing eyes said he knew it), “I wouldn’t be happy if that man brings in a perfectly fine spy the next day.”

“Are you perfectly fine now?” Gregorovich eyed Alex up and down, just as intentionally. “If I remember, before I graciously allowed you some sleep, you were _desperately_ offering do anything, to hurt yourself, to make me not care about your friends. I refused, last night.”

“Last night you refused.” Alex reframed the words, his tone flat. The barbs he was sending to Gregorovich might help his spirits, but the situation wasn’t a joke. Yassen’s responding look, perfectly even, might as well be a smug gloat. Alex didn’t control this situation. “Tonight you’ll…refuse again?”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re going to make me hurt myself.”

“If you would prefer to sleep somewhere else, it wouldn’t bother me.” Yassen looked, still, after yesterday when he shown some level of decency before throwing it away again at the end with his threats against the Pleasures, like he just didn’t _care._ Alex could be anyone, could be anything.  Maybe he would be alive, but that would be it.

He shivered, suddenly. Three days ago he had been certain, for at least a short time, that Yassen would kill him. And now it was back to two days ago – Yassen would offer to sell him, would offer him food, would treat him like just an animal, not worthy of contempt or focus. At least if Yassen had killed him, had threatened to hurt him himself, there would be _something._ Something that suggested Alex meant something to him. Three years ago, on Air Force 1…

It didn’t matter. Yassen didn’t care, and it wasn’t important.

“What do you want me to say, then?” Alex asked, numb. “You threatened me, I cried, I begged, you let me sleep?”

“I’m sure you can sell that as a night of horrors,” Yassen agreed.

“Did I eat?”

“I had leftovers.” Yassen shrugged.

“Fine.”

“Fine,” Yassen repeated. “Other melodramatics you are going to add, before you surprise me with them?”

Alex was truly tempted, right then, to just take out the wooden rattle handle-shiv and try to attack the man. Surely then Yassen would be done with him. Maybe Alex wouldn’t even feel it “No.”

The transition was quick – go to the restroom, change, brush his teeth, and in the daylight with curtains pulled back the inside of the church was shiny white, like freshly polished bones. Curtains pulled back on a safe house seemed inane, but there were illusions of ordinary worshippers to maintain.

There was a crying sound coming from the door they were approaching. Did gangsters really just keep their kids around while they planned the violence? Alex felt a pang of sorrow for Abhi. In a few years he might be considered old enough to start participating, and his questions of whether Alex was “the bad man” might quickly turn into “Should I be the bad man?” and “How can I make my dad happy?” In less than a few years, Abhi could be hurt, kidnapped, tortured. Could essentially be Alex, minus a few years. Yassen knocked twice, and Alex lingered behind.

The door opened a crack, and the maid slid out of the room, babies on both hips. She nodded at Yassen, avoided Alex’s eyes, and went down the hall, eyes lowered. “Come in!” A woman’s British voice. Gregorovich held the door open for Alex, following him inside.

There were four people already in the room, and in a second Alex understood the meaning behind Yassen’s comment earlier. Alex had been joking about a meeting, about firing an employee, and Yassen had said yes.

Molotov was in the room, sitting in a plush green couch with his wife. There was another man, next to the door and holding a gun, for now labelled Henchman number 3. And on the floor, gagged and bound, lay soon to-be-former-Henchman number 4. 

“’American’ boy.” Molotov gestured to Alex, beckoning him forward into the center of the room, next to the bound man. “You had a rough night, I see.”

“Better than his.” Alex nodded down.

The blow was unexpected, delivered to the back of his head. “The answer he was looking for was ‘yes, sir’”. Gregorovich said.

“Yes, sir,” Alex muttered, eyes stinging. _Fuck,_ he’d been kicked there last night.  

Molotov laughed at that. His wife, brunette, maybe mid-30s, addressed him. “What part of London are you from?”

“I’m not.” She frowned. Laying on an American accent, Alex added “Ma’am.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“I live in Washington.” Alex responded, keeping the accent.

“I’m sure Alex will be happy to apologize for any poor impressions.” Yassen took a seat in a redwood chair next to the couch. “He didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Oh?”

“I slept fine,” Alex muttered defensively. Yassen, leaning forward in the chair, raised an eyebrow. _Well, this is how I would respond if someone spent the last night torturing me, you git._ “Don’t worry about it.” He added. “I’m so sorry for _any poor impression_ I’ve left.” Alex tried to focus on the wall, because it seemed safer than looking at the mobster or his wife. He could still hear the dissatisfaction in her reply.

“You slept fine? You were sleeping all night, just fine?”

Alex frowned, looking to Yassen for some subtle cue of how to respond while leaving himself in the least amount of physical danger. The assassin looked levelly back at Alex, silently. The man was pushing forty, and he almost looked “cool”, in a sports jacket, white t-shirt, and dark jeans. _Fucking bastard_. Last night ignored, he clearly didn’t intent to help Alex. He had told Molotov he spent the night making Alex suffer, so all Alex needed to do right now was play the part convincingly.

Alex turned to look at the wife. She was British, clearly. Her deep set brown eyes and pale skin didn’t quite compliment her nude pink lipstick and mauve jacket, although Alex guessed she had no real equals to tell her so, and her forehead showed clear frown lines. She looked younger than Yassen by at least 5 years. Rich, easily displeased, and if Alex remembered her glare in the car yesterday, pissed that Alex’s presence had put her family in danger. “Yes?” she demanded. “You slept fine?”

“I fell asleep.” Alex said. “ _Ma_ _’_ _am._ I guess you could say I slept fine, because nobody woke me up. And I had the same amount of nightmares of kids being killed without my saving their life, so….a full night’s sleep then.”

Molotova pursed her lips. “And you, Gregorovich?”

‘It was busy.” Yassen smiled pleasantly, and Alex suppressed a shudder at how _normal_ the assassin’s smile looked. “Alex and I discussed family affairs. Eventually it was time for sleep, though.”

Alex looked at the tied up man on the floor. The henchman was staring at them with terror, following the mood of the room but didn’t seem to understand the conversation. Not an English speaker then. Trying to mimic the man’s terror, Alex swallowed. “I would have stayed up,” he whispered. “You told me you wouldn’t hurt them if…” Alex trailed off, making himself look Yassen in the eyes again.

Yassen was visibly amused – at his acting, Alex guessed, although to Molotov and his wife the amusement probably appeared more revenge-based in nature. “We’ll talk more later,” the assassin said.

“Yes, later, that would be a good time,” Molotov broke in. “Right now we have some business of our own to address to. There’s an employee of mine who recently entered the business of theft.” Molotov smiled widely at Alex, then the man on the floor. The tied up man blanched at the attention. “I condone a lot of crime...a lot of violence, a lot of drugs trafficking, human trafficking, weapons trafficking. I do not condone theft, especially when it is of my property.” Molotov stood, and gestured towards a pile of rubble in the corner. It looked as if someone had taken a mallet to three or four old wooden chairs, leaving a pile of splintered wood decorating the ground. “I have already talked to you, Alex, about how you have stolen me of manpower. At first I thought the best form of repayment was fiscal compensation, and I assure you that I do still intend to pursue that route. But after talking with Gregorovich, I think I’ve found some ways to drag some labor repayment from you as well.”

Molotov walked over to the trash heap, and pulled out an old chair leg. There were three or four nails sticking out of the end, where the leg must have been attached to the main body. He examined the chair leg, and smiled. “Little American, take this please.” Alex took the leg. The dread in his stomach, the numb feeling of ‘let’s just get on with it’, continued. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the play.

“You told him to do this,” Alex muttered, to Yassen.

“You don’t know what this is,” Molotov’s wife said. Alex looked at the wood in his hand, at the nails at the end.

“I can guess.”

“I can guess, ma’am,” Yassen said.

The man on the floor was jerking around, trying to watch the moves Molotov and Alex had done to the corner. Alex eyed him, wishing the man was Molotov, or fucking Gregorovich. “Fine. I don’t know what this is, _sir and ma_ _’_ _am._ _”_

“What do you think this is?” Molotova asked. Her pink lips were smiling now, and her frown lines were disappearing. “Don’t worry, I won’t punish you if you’re wrong.”

Alex looked at Yassen. The one person here who knew that Alex wasn’t a killer, who had told him to not become one _before sending him to SCORPIA, so mixed messages there._ “You told them I wouldn’t hurt anyone, and now they’re going to make me kill their man or be tortured myself.” It wasn’t a question, in Alex’s mind. Maybe there were more twisted plots in the world, but this one fit.

“Wouldn’t hurt anyone?” Yassen asked. “Why were you chasing me?” He looked to boss and his wife, giving the floor back to the man in charge. Alex turned for confirmation, cold inside. He wouldn’t do it, no matter the consequences…now. Yassen could make him. With enough time, there wasn’t a question.

“Now hold on,” Molotov said. “I didn’t say kill, or that I would hurt _you._  I didn’t say any of that. Aren’t you a very innocent little special forces agent, sent to a different country to track down American scientists, and a rescuer of little boys? A rescuer of my son? Why would I hurt you?” Molotov was smirking, openly. “I am helping you out, just like you helped my son. I am giving you a chance to repay me. And I don’t want this man dead – he is needed to be a message. Just a little,” Molotov circled his hands around each other, and shrugged. “Take out one of his eyes if you want. And if you don’t, my men will – and they will do worse.”

Alex released the weapon. “No.” It dropped to the floor. “ _No, sir, I mean._ _”_

Yassen shifted somewhat to the side. “It will be worse for him if I do it.”

He picked up the weapon again. The henchman started to struggle – he looked older, maybe in his forties or fifties. Maybe he had kids, he could even have grandkids. A close trimmed beard, oily grey hair, darker skin, definitely Southern Russian. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles wrapped with heavy rope right over military boots. “What’s his name?” Molotova looked shocked, for a moment, and pursed her lips.

“Call him a dead man, his name doesn’t matter. It will be gone soon.” She took them both in, and stood up suddenly. “Target his face – punch it in. I want him ugly.”

Alex focused on taking deep breaths. Stalling could save him a few moments maybe, but for what? Dead man on the floor would be messed up by the end of this, and waiting only left him suffering – just like Alex before Julius killed Jack. The terror was in the anticipation. And Alex would watch, either himself hurting the man or Yassen showing off why he got paid. Maybe Alex could just kill the man to save him pain – kneel down and twist his neck, he knew how, but he couldn’t kill like that, in cold blood for no reason. Maybe they’d decide to kill off another henchman after that, to watch Alex squirm. Molotov looked entertained, but his wife was crossing her arms, glowering from a few feet away.

Alex looked at the makeshift bat, looked at the man on the floor, and made a decision. “I’m sorry.” He raised the bat, and gently lowered it to victim’s forehead. It rested there, calmly.

Molotov laughed, scornfully. “Hurt him.”

Yassen nodded, and stood. “Switch with me, Alex.”   He thought about arguing, thought about standing over the thief and begging, but Gregorovich was on the clock right now, in front of his boss and co. One way or another, Alex would be sitting and watching.  Alex took the seat, clutched the hand rails, felt the pattern of wood grains.

The assassin pulled a handgun out of a waist holster, inspected it, checked the magazine, reinserted it, and fired into the hostage. Muffled screams and undimmed blood poured from the man. Yassen stepped on the knee he had just shot, applying pressure with his shoe. Alex flinched and closed his eyes for just a moment, turning his head away from the scene. “Watch, or I will shoot his other knee.”

Alex watched.

Yassen was efficient, every move he made aimed at maximizing the pain. The man on the floor was losing blood, lost teeth from a targeted kick to the jaw, might have ruptured an ear drum, his hand was crushed. In maybe five minutes the man was maimed and screaming. Alex was going to be sick.

“Stop,” Molotova said. She examined Alex, up and down. “I have some questions for you.”

Alex focused on her jacket, the golden buttons, the lace edge details. Not on the cries, piteous and high and choked from the gag, on the floor. “What if I don’t have answers?”

“Try.” She stepped closer, carefully avoiding the blood pools. “Are you American? You’ve had both accents now.”

“Tell the truth, Alex.”

The truth? “I have passports from the U.S. and the U.K. I grew up mostly in the U.K., and I’m living in Washington now.”

She accepted that with a nod. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You know Gregorovich?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “How?”

“He killed my uncle when I was fourteen. He knew my dad. My dad betrayed him.” Yassen watched the exchange impassably. Molotov, on the couch, appeared unsurprised. “I tried to kill him in the past, when I was fourteen.” Alex gestured to the assassin. “It didn’t work.”

The gangster started at that. “He tried to kill you?” Addressed in surprise to Yassen, “He’s still alive.”

Yassen shrugged. “He was fourteen. I don’t kill children.” Levelly, “He is not a child now.”

“I think there’s more to that story,” Molotova pondered. “How? If you were raised in the U.K., you wouldn’t have a gun.” It was Alex’s turn to shrug, and the wife glared. “Tell me, or I will have Gregorovich continue the show.”

Yassen idly nudged the captive with his foot, and was met with a low tortured moan. The henchman by the door flinched almost unnoticeably – even for Russian gangsters the spectacle  was getting gruesome.

“I was in France, on vacation. Yassen was supposed to kill someone I knew, and I saw him, and followed him onto a boat. There was a gun – I picked it up.” At the memory, Alex glared. “He didn’t let me go – I escaped. He just didn’t kill me.”

“How did you know him?”

“I told you – he killed my uncle.”

Molotova sighed. She waved a perfectly manicured arm to the assassin. “But how did you know that this man, Gregorovich, who killed your uncle, was _him?_ _”_

Alex frowned. She was clever, and this wasn’t a path he cared to go down— _I stopped a madman, for the first time, when everyone except Ian was still alive, and he didn_ _’_ _t kill me because_ _‘_ _he didn_ _’_ _t have orders to_ _’—_ wait. Yassen hadn’t had orders to eliminate witnesses? From a group as sinisterly good at being evil as SCORPIA?

“I saw a picture,” Alex replied. “MI6 used me for a few assignments, and I snuck into a room to see my uncle’s file. Found Gregorovich’s name, and looked up a picture. He was on a few international watchlists – it wasn’t hard.”

“That’s all?” Molotova was looking to Yassen now, for confirmation, but the man gave nothing away.

“That’s all.” Yassen could have told Molotov more, might still tell them more later, but if he didn’t speak up Alex saw no reason to tell the rest of it, Sayle’s murder and Cray’s games and Yassen’s (brief) death on Air Force One, let alone Alex’s battle against SCORPIA that spanned the rest of the year, and most of the globe.

“Why does the Prime Minister want you alive?”

“I don’t know. Maybe MI6 used their connections, or the CIA. I work for a small organization, and half of them are probably stuck in Russia or still trying to get back to the U.S. right now.”

“You worked for MI6 and the CIA?” Molotova, rationally, looked shocked, although she did seem to believe him. “You said you are 18.”

“He was their experiment with a child spy,” Yassen replied. “He was quite successful. I believe he is the only reason SCORPIA no longer exists. He finished his father’s work, and then went into private security.”

Molotova nodded, and redirected her attention to Alex. “You put my family in danger.”

“Blame Gregorovich. He brought me here. I just wanted to talk to him.”

Nobody spoke for several minutes. Alex evaluated the room: Molotov, not quite so happy and delighted as when Alex had got the room; Molotova, pissed that her children were in danger; soon to be dead man, being loudly almost dead on the floor; henchman against the wall, monitoring the scene aloofly; Yassen, three fourths indifferent to Alex’s pain, one fourth sadistically interested in Alex learning a lesson and maybe leaving the situation alive.

“I see.” Molotova looked to her husband, mind made up. “I want him alive. No arguments, no convincing me to change my mind. His life might be needed for our own, or our children, with things as they are. Gregorovich, keep him with you. I want him kept unable to try anything, I don’t care how you do it.”

Yassen shrugged. “Like I said, last night was busy. I suspect the next few will be as well.”

“Good.” She looked at her husband. “This has been a distraction – we have business to attend to. I have men coming here later to discuss our options for the new drug. And we will need another nanny here, especially with the government stepping in. We’re going to need more lawyers if our relationship is souring, and three of our men were just put on a list from Interpol. Gregorovich – keep this man alive a bit longer, show our guest some hospitality. Take his hand and send it to his family, as a reminder of what we do to thieves. And please, beat some sense into the English-American.”

Yassen nodded, and finally the mobster and his wife left, taking the other mobster with them.

Alex looked down at the man at the ground. _Take his hand._

“Just shoot him.” The man on the ground would be thankful for a quick death, if he had to die.

“Those were not my orders.”

“You don’t always follow orders.” The unmovable man was still listening, at least. “You were ordered to kill me, twice.” He was certain now that when he had first met the assassin, four years ago, there had been orders.

“And yet here you are.” Yassen looked around the room. “There aren’t any knives in here. We will need to get one.”

“Don’t,” Alex shuddered, “put me in this. You can get whatever the fuck you want, because I can’t stop you.”

The man on the floor let out a sudden gasp, jerked off the ground, and collapsed again. “He’ll be dead soon. This pain is relative, and temporary.”

“Do me a favor and just kill him or kill me.” Without emotion, Alex added, almost as an afterthought, “Or kill yourself.”

The man at the floor was sobbing through his gag now, too gone to care that half his captors had left the room.

A loud gunshot filled the room, and the room was silent. Yassen slipped the gun back into the holster. In the silence, he pulled a phone out, and sent a quick text. Alex closed his eyes, rested his head against the side of the chair. Everything still hurt – visceral images of blood spreading across a floor filled his head. He could hear Gregorovitch typing, could hear his head pounding. “I have another man coming soon, to take care of this.”

“Does _this_ mean cutting up corpses and mailing them across the country? And if so, didn’t your boss order you to do it?”

“Delegation is an important skill. Would you prefer I delegate this task to you?” When Alex didn’t respond to the taunt, Yassen resumed typing. True to his word, moments later another man was entering, holding a butcher’s knife and a small cooler. Directed to the body, the man knelt down and cut the ropes off the corpse’s hands.

“Do I have to be here for this?” Was throwing up an acceptable sign of learning a lesson?

Both men ignored him. The new man was drawing a line across the arm of the corpse, labelling a cut. Yassen was making a call now, giving instructions in a clear voice. _Would he get a bag to throw up in if he asked?_

“We’re leaving, Alex.”

“Fine.” _Good._ Alex forced himself to walk, instead of throwing himself across the room and running for his life. Yassen followed, and quickly took the lead, winding their way back to the bedroom. Someone had piled firewood inside of the room, on the bed Alex had been in earlier.

“Fill the tub with water,” Yassen said, and knelt by the fireplace.  He started to pile wood into the bottom of the chimney. Alex paused at the doorway, watching. Meandering, and pushing for time until the next activity. He had a decent guess at the unpleasantness fate was bring his way next.

“Now, Alex.”

Alex went to the restroom. Minutes later he was back.

“It’s full.”

Yassen finished crumbling paper at the top of the firewood, and pulled a lighter out of his pocket. A spark quickly caught the fire, and in moments the paper was fading to black and flames licked across the firewood.

“Show me.”

The tub was big enough to drown someone, which Alex imagined was close to what Yassen had pictured. He had nightmares of this exact situation. Sharks dragging him down a watery tunnel to his death, CIA agents floating down to the bottom of the ocean to rest. Yassen showed Alex a strand of rough hemp rope. He watched with dread as Yassen leaned over the tub, wrapped one end of the rope around the water faucet, and swiftly tied the ends together to form a tight knot. Now two ends of rope hung down, dipping into the water.

“If you fight, or try to run, or do anything besides sit down and try not to bother me, this is where you will be staying until nightfall, in approximately,” Yassen glanced out the small window into the morning light, “10 hours. Understood?”

Ten hours, struggling to keep his head above water, sore muscles holding him up, maybe choking on water that goes into his nose. The very real possibility of drowning. Presumably Yassen would check occasionally that he was still alive. It would be a miserable 10 hours. Alex folded his arms, protectively. “What about now?”

“Now, you are going to sit quietly. Is that too much trouble?”

“No.” His fingers dug into his arms. He didn’t want to do this, but it needed to be said. “Thank you.”

“For?” Yassen waited, not expectant, but not surprised either.

“Shooting him, instead of making him suffer. Not torturing me right now.” His lips tugged into a sardonic smile.  “After, you know, making me watch earlier. And leaving me to be beat up last night. So I still hate you.”

Yassen laughed – actually, properly laughed. “And are still going to kill me, is that right? Should I watch my back while I’m working?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.” The smile was gone off Alex’s face, disappeared without a trace.

“Think about your plans in front of the fire then.” Mimicking Alex or just returning to natural inhuman stance, Yassen’s smile vanished.  “I have work to do.”


	11. Distractions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bottle episode. 
> 
> Mostly.
> 
> I feel it's time to explore the 'one person who Yassen has any sort of real feelings for' side of Yassen's relationship with Alex. 
> 
> I have another fic between the two of them that I want to release shortly. The one in progress has a lot less torture and a lot more mission (kind of?).
> 
> Read on, dear reader, read on.

**“** **Nobody in the government is talking. They say it** **’** **s a case of national security.** **”**

 **―** **Kenneth Eade**

It would still be bright outside. It was only half past eleven, though the room was dark. Alex had asked a while back to put the curtains down, because he had a headache. They were the only words exchanged in hours.

During the time Yassen and Alex had left to see Molotov, the maid had brought a stack of papers from the printer in another room. As well as doctored receipts for imported weapons that Yassen would need to examine, Yassen had printed news articles in several languages to practice his translations. With Alex safely motionless on the floor, Yassen had pulled the stack to the desk and begun work.

He started on the article translations, from Arabic to Russian: oil prices were rising in Chechnya because of a localized embargo, pirates outside of Somalia were increasing their activity, local Taliban activity on the Afghanistan border. The translations for the second article would take a while – it had Russian names translated into Arabic. Yassen had the original Russian names in a similar Russian article where he could check his translation, but the point of the exercise was the practice. He would have to retranslate names back, from the Arabic alphabet to the Russian Cyrillic one.

Yassen glanced over his shoulder. Since asking for darkness, Alex had been silent on the floor, his head resting against the lower bedframe, facing the fire. Occasionally the young man shivered, or shifted. His hands were clutched together, white with pressure. At fourteen, years ago, Yassen had seen signs of seriousness in Alex’s face already. Now, there wasn’t much else. Had Alex even waited a year before jumping into work again?

“Do you normally take assignments in countries where you don’t know the language?”

Alex closed his eyes for a minute. When he responded, his voice was strained. “Sometimes.”

“And what would you do right now, if you were able to overpower me and run away?”

Alex shrugged. Warm orange flickers danced around the young man’s face, reflecting the fire he was staring into. “Try not to get caught again.”

“Do you know how to say help? Police?” Yassen waited for a moment, unnecessarily. _No._

The fire crackled loudly. “Ironically, I know how to say, ‘I know Russian.’”

“I remember.”

 Alex flinched slightly, dark shadows in his eyes. “And you’re going to say I’m an idiot for coming here without knowing the language. Anything else?”

Yassen looked back at the papers on his desk. He turned over the first article, on the embargo, to find a large empty section of paper. He began to write. “Pomogite. Politsiya. Say those now.”

“Pomogite.”

“Politsiya.” Yassen looked over, waited until Alex repeated the word. “If you find yourself on your own, say those two words. _Pomogite. Politsiya._ ”

“Help, police?”

 “Yes. Most Russians do not know English. You are here, in Russia, with no grasp of the language or history, relying on luck to keep yourself alive.”

Defensively, Alex frowned. “I wasn’t relying on luck. I had a team. I have a team.”

“You have yourself.” The young man grimaced, but didn’t argue. “I have the Russian alphabet here.” Yassen offered a sheet of paper, a handwritten alphabet on the side. “You have the option to learn it, or to sulk until evening.”

Alex took the paper, glanced over it.

“Why?”

It was a good question. If he really wanted Alex to go away, and leave this field, arming him with the skills to continue was not just futile but went wildly against his convictions. Three days ago, Yassen had been ready to kill Alex if commanded. Although… treacherously, his mind argued that if the order had been given, he might not have followed through. Even three days ago, annoyed at Alex being back in his life again as he had been. “Are you going to stop? Running around the world pretending that one side has the moral authority?”

“You want me to say yes, and you’ve got a gun, creativity, and plenty of time alone with me. So yeah. Sure.” False words, not meant to ring true.

“You won’t.”  Yassen stood, crossed the room, relocated his spare clothes off a chair in the corner. “It would be better for you if you went home, got a degree, got another job. You could help the world in other ways, but you won’t.”

Bitterly, Alex replied. “You don’t know that. _I_ don’t know that. I don’t exactly _enjoy_ being threatened or beat up.”

Yassen pushed the empty chair up against the desk, and cleared the desk of papers, translations and his laptop moving onto the far bed. He re-furled the curtains, light spilling into the room. “Don’t you?” He gestured at the chair. “Take a seat. Maybe if you come to Russia again you can pass for Latvian.”

Moments later Alex was repeating the letter sounds, following them on the paper with a pen. He had moved the chair to be as far away as possible from Yassen while still looking onto the desk. Perhaps he had chosen this simply because it would make the time pass faster than contemplating however Molotov might entertain himself tomorrow.

 _Good,_ Yassen decided. There would be no relief in thinking of those things. Molotov was not generally a needlessly cruel man. He ordered men shot, or made examples of, for business purposes. Not entertainment. Alex was fast becoming his prime exception – Rider luck. If Yassen was correct, within a week the government would bargain for an end to the hostilities with the mafia. The mafia could trade Alex for resumed cohabitation between the mafia and the government in Russian borders. Put a few countries between the young man and his new enemies. Finally Yassen would have a good night’s sleep, without questions about Rider’s safety.

It was an hour later, around the time Yassen was thinking that a late lunch was in order, when Molotov walked in.

“What’s this?”

Alex froze, hunched over the desk, pen in his hand. His own alphabet semi-finished on the page in front of him. It was either real fear, of discovery that he wasn’t being tortured or the idea that might be soon, or good acting. “Alex is learning something he should have a long time ago.” Looking over the half-written alphabet with a frown, Yassen added. “Something he should have learned before coming to Russia, certainly.”

“Oh?” Molotov sauntered over. “Russian?” He took Alex’s paper from him, without resistance. “Why?”

“He can explain why.” Yassed watched Alex shift uncertainly. He knew the young man was clever enough to fill in the blanks, and it would be less suspicious

 “If I don’t learn it I’ll be drowned.”

“Forever?” Molotov seemed genuinely curious, although they both remembered his wife’s orders from earlier. Yassen wouldn’t disobey direct orders not to kill someone. He was being paid.

“Might as well be, since I’m stuck with you otherwise.”

Yassen felt his hand twitch. Did the stupid boy learn? Even John Rider would not have gotten away with this disrespect to his bosses, and he was well liked.  

“When you were a spy, was this a successful tact?” Molotov looked around the room, maybe searching for a form of punishment.

“Yes.” Alex replied, simply. “I can say sir again, if you want me to. Or ask for a poker for you to put my eyes out.”

Molotov looked in disbelief at Yassen. “Does he act like this with just the two of you?”

Irritation crossed Yassen’s face. “No. And unless he believes this to be the most rational course of action, I would recommend he stop.” 

“Hm.” A hand grabbed Alex’s face, and a finger traced down his cheek. “You aren’t doing enough to him.”

“I don’t have any interest in a punching bag.”

“Just lots of begging,” Alex muttered. Molotov’s hand tightened while he laughed.

“Creative as you are, that’s not a problem?”

“No, it is not.” Yassen stood up, moved towards the door to the restroom. “Would you like to participate?”

Molotov’s thumbnail dug into Alex’s lip. Colors fled from Alex’s cheek under Molotov’s fingers. Blood began to well on his lip. The boy held still, venom in his eyes. “I don’t like this look he’s giving me. ” 

Yassen tilted his head slightly towards the restroom door. “You could start him off.”

“But I wonder, former spy, why are you uniquely rude to me? I do not tolerate disrespect.” Molotov smiled deceptively. “Answer me.”

“Let go,” Alex said, ripping his head back. “Maybe I’m more scared of Gregorovich.”

“Maybe you are.” He released the boy’s face. Molotov glanced back at Yassen. Despite his teasing smile, Yassen knew his boss well enough to see the boiling rage. Alex was a fool. “Target practice tomorrow, Gregorovich? And we’ll met at dinner for logistics.”

 “Yes.”

“Keep him busy until then. I want an apology before dinner. A sincere apology.” Molotov slapped Alex lightly and left.

Yassen searched for signs of upset in Alex’s face. None. The sullen rebellion of a moment ago had fled. Now, there was just a neutral expression marred by the pale imprints of Molotov’s fingers. Anger unfurled itself in his torso, desire to shake Alex until he _stopped_ aggravating a leader of the mafia. Did he have a single survival instinct in his body?

Alex touched his lip, wiped blood away from his face. “Your boss needs a manicure. Does he bite his nails?” There was no humor in Alex’s tone. His eyes met Yassen’s, saw the cold anger, and he grimaced.

“Does this end the alphabet lessons? I was getting good – look, е, ё, и, ю, я.” He pointed at the vowels with a pen.

Yassen waited, silently. Alex averted his eyes. He had two options: hurt Alex, and explain why. Or leave Alex be, go back to the lessons. Waste time until Alex faked an apology later tonight--it was possible Alex could fake hurt well enough to appease Molotov until the next moment his boss needed a distraction from the Government's embargo against the mafia. 

Alex would continue to fight. He knew Alex. He knew his family, the perseverance that John had shown in their time together. Faced with danger, Alex fought back, until he was free or dead, all thoughts of caution thrown to the wind. He had survived years off luck, and from the weakness of men like Yassen who underestimated the boy's talent, and maybe now he had some training he relied on some amount of skill, but his gamble to argue back would not satisfy Molotov. “Have you heard of risk analysis, Alex?”

Alex nodded mutely. His pen traced the symbols he had already written on the paper.

“I’m not going to kill you, or permanently injure you, and I want you to leave Russia alive." Yassen paused deliberately, watching Alex fiddle with his pen. "My boss wants you dead, thinks it’s funny to hurt you, and tells me what to do.”

“He won’t kill me himself. He’s been telling you to do it. I’ve already seen what happens when someone tells you to kill me. I survive.”  Alex started finishing the alphabet, still avoiding Yassen’s eyes. “And I told Molotov that I was more afraid of you, which is what he already thinks. Aren’t you supposed to be terrorizing me right now?”

“Which I may begin, since my boss ordered it.”

“The point is that I told him that because I clearly wasn’t afraid of him right then, so I might as well be terrified of one of you. And he only asked that because you told your boss I didn’t sass you. Which I’m doing now. So get on that.” Alex slammed the pen down, glaring at the Russian. “Which _risk analysis_ tells me you don’t really want to do.”

“Your risk analysis is wrong.”

Yassen walked deliberately past the fireplace, to the bed Alex had slept in last night. The pile of wood on top spilled over the covers, and he selected a long, thin ashen stick. “Move next to the fireplace.”

“Why?”

Yassen narrowed his eyes, and yanked Alex out of his seat. “Bring your chair over here, and sit.” After his instructions had been warily followed, Yassen pointed to the arm of the chair. “Put your hand here.” Alex laid his arm, veins down, on the arm.

“In twenty minutes, I am going to call my boss to come back, and you will have an apology ready. Until then, you can choose between the fire, or my knife.”

Alex bit his lip. Apprehensive, not scared. Maybe he thought this was a bluff. Moments ago Yassen had been teaching him, and perhaps this had shown Alex a weakness Yassen had not intended. Nevermind. The boy would learn. 

Yassen examined the ash rod he had chosen. “When I was fourteen, a man in the Russian mafia handed me a revolver with one bullet in the chamber, and told me to point it at my head and shoot. If I did not make the choice to do so, he would have shot me himself, and I would have died.” One end of the rod entered the fire, both sets of eyes following it’s path. “When I pressed the trigger, there was the possibility I would have died. But I did not.” He placed two fingers on Alex’s arm, twisted it so the underside faced up. “I am going to burn you here, and you will let me. Later, you will show my boss the burns, and beg for him to make me stop. You will tell him that you are more afraid of him and beg for mercy.”

Alex closed his eyes. Yassen exchanged the flaming stick into his left hand, and with his right pressed down on Alex’s arm, pinning it still.

The suppressed screams that followed were hard to hear, more than Yassen would have predicted. One arm pressed against the chair, burns in a path from his elbow to his wrist, Alex’s other arm forced it’s way over his mouth. In Alex's credit, he barely fought, accepting that the punishment was going to happen, one way or another. It was closer to seven minutes later when Yassen released him, deciding almost as much for his sake as Alex’s not to burn the other arm. Alex was shaking, tears spilling from his eyes. 

Yassen inspected Alex’s wrist. Although it wasn’t even, the burns across his arm would all be roughly second degree. His wrist was red and blistered. Painful, he suspected, as he felt Alex wince and pull away. “This won’t scar, if you take care of it.” He released Alex’s hand, and the boy immediately moved back, retreating to the third bed in the corner. “Alex.” The boy looked at him, defensively sitting as far as he could from Yassen. His burnt arm was cradled close to his body. “If someone is threatening you, has control over whether you live or die, and wants to think of themselves as the boss, do not tell them that you’re more afraid of their employees.”

Yassen thumbed through the texts on his phone, found Molotov’s number in his recent contacts. _Alex needs to see you,_ he sent. He found the maid’s number, and sent a request for food for two people.

He felt the gaze on his back. Turned to see Alex watching him. A mask of anger covered any pain from the boy’s injuries. Neutral brown eyes glowered. “You’re doing this to me, not him. I’m still more afraid of you, no matter what I’m telling him.”  

“And what are you going to tell him?”

Yassen’s anger was gone. Alex was going to follow the instructions. He could hate Yassen if he wanted, but he would leave this situation alive.

“You want me to act scared.” Alex waited for confirmation. When none was forthcoming, he nodded. “Alright.” Dropping his eyes to the ground, he shivered. When he spoke, it was in a low, shaking voice, “I’m sorry. Please tell him to stop, stop, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sorry.”

“Good.” It was clear how the boy had survived so long; when pushed into the corner, he could lie about his intentions incredibly convincingly. Molotov would come, Alex would play his part, and then Yassen would bring out the first aid kit from the bathroom counter. Quickly he dismissed thoughts of helping Alex bind his arm - Alex would struggle to wrap his arm with one hand, but it was his punishment, and one he could suffer alone. 

“Why are you doing this?” Alex sounded strangely small, now wrapped in a blanket on the far wall. 

“Hurting you?”

“Helping me.” Alex scowled, though not at Yassen this time. “Distracting me. I’m not an idiot, I know you weren’t showing me the alphabet to help me learn another language in a day.”       

Yassen didn’t answer. He didn’t have a true answer to give, and the one he might attempt, _conscience_ , would only make Alex scoff.

Alex smirked bitterly. "I'm just that pitiful, right?"

No, Yassen thought, comment unsaid. Molotov would be on his way soon, and there was no need for further discussion until then. Let Alex think he was untrustworthy, hateful. He didn't have room for Alex to think of Yassen as someone who would help him. If Alex was depending on outside help, he would stop searching so hard for a way himself. Yassen preferred to thing the government would make amends soon. He could be wrong. There may not be any outside help forthcoming. The more independence Alex showed, the better his chances of survival. 

\---AR----

“We want Alex Rider, and we want Gregorovich. Alive.” The former, and newly rehired, second in command of MI6 knew the Russians would never comply. They might agree to one, but never both. _Aim high, miss, get the main objective: Alex. Russia could keep Yassen Gregorovich, but Alex was going to leave that country alive, body intact._ “Is there an updated location?”

“Our security forces are giving the case supreme consideration and many resources.”

“Are they still in Moscow?”

“We cannot confirm any locations at this time. Several leads are being pursued.”

“Do you have any leads?” Mrs. Jones could not keep the bite out of her tone, and frankly couldn’t be bothered to try.

“North, south, west, east, we are pursuing many options.” A pause, and her counterpart at the FSB added, “We will not allow them to escape our forces. We know how dangerous these men are, particularly Gregorovich.”

 _Point, Russia,_ Mrs. Jones reflected ruefully. Technically, MI5 had been the ones to lose Gregorovich three years ago, but their failure reflected on the entire country’s intelligence services. “Need I remind you how critical former Agent Rider was to saving the life of your president 4 years ago? And protecting your nuclear remnants in Murmansk? Your entire country owes a debt.”

 “It has not been forgotten.”

“And?” She heard the bite in her voice clearly give way to stress and winced.

“And we are pursuing many leads.”

Well. Tulip Jones knew from years on the job how many leads that answer meant they had. None.

Mrs. Jones had options. She was the second in command of MI6, not for nothing. She knew people, she had connections across Eastern Europe – her third language was Ukrainian, and she had pleasant memories of visiting Russia while on a heads of state exchange several summers back. She had agents under her control.

And she knew one agent in particular that might be perfect for the job.


	12. Outreach

**“** **Asking for help isn** **’** **t a sign of weakness, it** **’**   **s a sign of strength.** **”** **-Barack Obama**

The Russian guard interacting with the team seemed genuinely surprised by their desire for a phone that called outside the hotel.

“We need to call our families, and our bosses. You can listen in, of course, we are not trying to hide anything.” Harris smiled patiently. Russians didn’t smile to strangers, of course, not without looking like complete fools. Harris had been relying on his smile to look like that foolish American, hoping it would deceive the Russians into believing the entire team here was fools who had stumbled into a conspiracy far higher than their own paygrade. Fools who wouldn’t attempt subterfuge or intelligence reconnaissance while stuck behind enemy lines in the cold and snowing Russian winter – well, that last part was exaggeration, Harris admitted. Although he’d been stuck inside all day, the view from the window showed a sunny if chilly autumn day.

“Let me confer with my bosses.” The Russian nodded and stepped outside, pulling his own cell phone out of his pocket as he did so. Outside they heard whispered interactions. A minute later the guard stepped inside, offering his own cell phone to Harris.

“We will give you an hour to make phone call. You will have privacy of course. I will be just here.” Harris nodded gratefully. Shows of gratitude could never harm them, although the man’s face showed no inclination whether he cared about the gesture or not.

Sylvester looked around the team. “Should we call Carter or Hyde?”

Carter, the man who had hired Alex, was more talkative. He enjoyed talking and enjoyed talking to and _about_ fellow employees. But Hyde was the boss, and might actually know the truth.

“Hyde.” Harris decided, and from the nods around the room he could see the team concurring.

Ayad coughed. Eyes turning to him, he took advantage of the attention. “We have an hour. We need to call quickly, no stalling. What are we asking about?”

“Everything,” Brandon said. “How old he is, his previous experience, his middle name, his last name, his first name, his family, why he’s working for an American team with a British accent…”

“He’s working for an American team because he had dual nationality, but he was raised in Britain.”

“He lived in France and Germany a little, I think.”

“Sure, if any of that’s true,” Brandon interrupted. “Also, we should probably ask how he knows Gregorovich, right?”

James cut in. “Ask how long Hyde’s known him. Did he know Alex before Alex joined the team?”

“Ok,” Harris said. “Ok. We have a lot of questions to ask. Let’s get Hyde on the line, and we’ll ask them.”

Harris punched in Hyde’s personal number, the one he had only for emergencies. He put it on speaker. It was early morning in America right now, hopefully Hyde was already awake.

It was on the second ring that the man answered. “Hello?”

“Hyde, we don’t have much time. It’s Harris and the team in Russia right now.”

“Harris? How are you? Is everyone alright?”

“Aside from being guests of the Russians for an indeterminate amount of time?” Sylvester asked.

Hyde coughed. “It’s not an ideal situation, I’ll grant you.”

“We need to know about Alex.”

“What about him? Has he been found?”

“No.”

“We’ve been monitoring for him from here in the States, but I’m not sure we know much more about his condition than you do.”

“We’re not calling to ask where he is. We know you don’t know that. We’re calling for something else – for details about him.”

“I don’t know how much you think I can give you. Anything he hasn’t told you himself is his life to keep private.”

“How does Alex know Yassen Gregorovich?”

Hyde answered after a pause. “I didn’t know that he did.”

“Well they do. Gregorovich knew the kid back when he was Alex Rider, not Alex Pleasure.”

“We have Alex’s family information on file, we can reach out to them and find out.” Something in Hyde’s voice told the team that the answer was an evasion. No one would be reaching out to Alex’s family.

“How did you find Alex? What gave him the qualifications to join us? Look, I know we’re asking some personal questions, but the kid’s in real danger here. He’s being held captive by dangerous people. Honestly we’re just assuming that he’s still alive.”

“I understand.” Hyde’s voice sounded distant. “I can’t tell you much. We were recommended Alex by a government agency, and his credentials checked out.”

“What credentials? I’ve seen him fight, it’s clear he’s had training. Was it an American agency?”

“The agency that recommended Alex is American.”

Hyde’s tone, commanding and brief, made it evident that he would not continue having this conversation much longer.

 “Ok,” Harris said. “We just have a final question, and it’s turned into a bit of a debate that needs settling. How old is Alex?”

Hyde paused a moment. “Almost twenty-one.”

The men exchanged looks. “You hired him at eighteen? How did he have the experience? Ayad went through five years with the Navy SEALS, James has degree in chemical engineering and was a major with the army, Brandon trained in Korea,” Harris trailed off, astonished.

“There were exceptional circumstances, that I am not at liberty to discuss.”

That wasn’t helpful. It seemed that every part of Alex’s life was classified, from his family and age to his past. Ayad bit back a frustrated curse.

“Does Alex’s family know he’s in danger right now?”

“He has a foster family in California. We haven’t contacted them yet.”

“What? He’s been held captive for almost a week, we’ve all contacted our family, on my supervised phone call last night even my Grandmother’s cousin was sending me well wishes.”

“Alex doesn’t want them to know when he’s in danger.”

“He’s twenty-one!”

“He’s an adult, he can choose his privacy.” Hyde’s voice cooled.

“Can you give us their information, sir?” Ayad asked.

“They’re his family.  Their contact information is private.”

“At least tell them. Tell them that he’d captive in Russia.”

“Will that help the situation?” Hyde asked. “Having his family know he’s somewhere, we don’t know where, being held captive by someone he knows from an earlier life. They can’t do anything.”

 "TWhat if we have to tell them he's dead, out of no where? Maybe they know something to help us! We know Alex knew Gregorovitch - Brandon says Gregorovich recognized Alex. We should at least try."

There was a long silence at the end.

"Alex asked us to keep his family in the dark. I'm sorry, but I have to respect his wishes." Hyde's tone was final. 

 "Can we have their information?"

"I'm sorry."

"This isn't helpful." Harris said, frustration seeping out of his voice.

"I know."

\---AR---

The administrative offices at the Royal & General Bank looked the same as at any other bank. Screen partitions half divided off the desks of lower down employees, while the doors leading to individual offices hid in the back, behind a common area with a few Keurig machines and a water cooler. Mrs. Jones walked down the aisle to a back office, one she knew well. She had worked with this agent many times and was itching to promote him anytime. Perhaps this case would be the one to push his advancement on.

After knocking twice on the open door, she let herself in. A slender man, leaning over a file, looked up. “Ma’am?”

Tulip Jones smiled. “Ben Daniels. It’s been too long since you were in the field. I’m going to change that.”

\---AR---

“So I have a confession.”

The team glanced over to Brandon,

“When they were bringing me over, they left me in the room where all of our stuff from the technology cart was. They turned away for a minute, and I looked through some of our stuff. Alex had left his personal phone in the van, and I saw it just sitting there. Now don’t blame me for my curiosity, but after trekking across the country and about to be imprisoned for an indeterminate amount of time in a Russian hotel, I just had to do something.”

Pausing for dramatic effect, Brandon gathered them round, the whole team now huddling together so no bug could pick up their conversation. “Of course, I knew they’d notice a missing cell phone, so I couldn’t just take it.”

“What,” Harris enunciated, “Did you do?”

“I took Alex’s sim card.”

Ayad connected the dots first. The smile that lit his face was positively manic. “Boys, we’re going to need another cell phone.”

Hours later, after dawdling and talking a while about sports to throw off any suspicion that their whispers might have led to, Sylvester asked for another phone call. The guard grumbled a bit with humor, complaining that the men would have to stop asking for favors at some point. After a number of dramatic sighs, though, he handed over his work phone “for twenty minutes”.

Switching sim cards, and thanking their lucky graces that Alex’s card worked in the Russian model, Sylvester looked up the contact list.

“Do we think Sabina Pleasure might have some answers?”

“Yes!” DC exclaimed. “Punch her in already.”

Smiling, Sylvester did just that.

 “Is this Sabina Pleasure?”

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“Are you Alex Pleasure’s sister?”

Warily, Sabina answered.  “Adoptive sister, yes. Has something happened.”

Harris frowned. There was no easy way to break the news. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Is Alex alright?”

“Honestly, we’re not sure.” Harris exchanged a look with his team. “Ma’am, you might want to sit down.”

Shuffling noises on the line indicated Sabina was doing just that.

“What happened?”

“Do you know where Alex works?”

“Yes, though I don’t approve. Are you from his work?”

“Yes. I’m the leader in his team, more or less. Did Alex tell you he was leaving the country?”

“He never tells me anything about his job. I prefer not to know.”

Sylvester nodded. That was exactly how his mom handled what he did. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and for God’s sake be alive and well come Christmas. If Alex had a family that still supported him despite not liking his occupation, well, good on the kid.

“Well, he left the country.”

“For Britain?”

 “Same continent,” DC muttered.

“Russia.”

“Russia? Are Americans even allowed in Russia? And he was trying to spy there?”

“Well, spy isn’t really the word,” Harris said. “We’re more like an independent government operations team. Think Navy Seals, not CIA.”

“Ok, but you’re in Russia!” Sabina exclaimed.

“Yeah. The government hired us, the American government, to help, well, that’s classified, actually. But we were tracking a suspect. And the suspect took Alex captive, five days ago.” Harris looked at the others, frowned, and rushed ahead. “We think Alex might have known him, and we wanted to know how.”

“Who?”

“He’s a contract killer, with ties to the Russian Mafia.”

After a long pause, Sabina asked, reluctantly, “Who is it?”

“He goes by the name Yassen Gregorovich.”

There was a muffled exclamation, as if Sabina had covered a gasp. “Oh my god,” a weak voice whispered. “Oh my god. We need to talk.”

\---AR---

Yassen was gone, leaving a cold soup and bread for Alex to eat for dinner. He’d left a list of Russian words to be translated back into English. His own form of kindness and apologies, perhaps, keeping Alex too busy to think about the torment he’d been through already, and would go through in the next few days. Or a form of keeping Alex too busy to think of escapes.

The distraction failed. 

Yassen had left enough words to keep him up half the night, but Alex had abandoned his translations about ten words in. He needed to think, and finally the room was (almost) his own. Alex scowled at the guard at the door. He was the same man who had beaten Alex up the night they’d arrived at this place. The guard looked apathetic to being in the same space with Alex, which meant he probably wasn’t about to try anything painful just for the fun of it.

Could he knock out the guard? The man was heavy, almost twice Alex’s weight due to muscle, fat, and height. The guard was trained to knock people around, though, and Alex was skilled in taking people down. He’d taken heavier men down at 14 and had only improved since.

The problem was the element of surprise. When Alex had been 14, he could pass for a guileless teenager. Now he could pass for a teenage delinquent, but an 18-year-old wasn’t considered harmless in the same way a 14-year-old would be.  

And Alex was a prisoner. The guard knew he was considered a serious risk, the guard had a gun, and Alex himself was in no position to fight.

He could fake sick though. Schoolboy tricks hadn’t failed him yet. He could fake sick, stagger to the restroom, and start retching. When the guard came to check on him, all he had to do was wait for the right moment of the guard leaning over, and he could elbow him in just the right spot to take the guard down and disarm him in one move. If it failed, Alex would try to pretend he was just flailing.

It was worth a chance. Alex positioned himself on the bed facing away from the guard. He could pinch himself in the face for red cheeks.

The moment was gone.

Alex heard the door open seconds before he set his plan into action.

Yassen was back. Alex could hear Yassen and the guard speaking in Russian, and the guard leaving. Quiet footsteps approached Alex's bed.

“Still awake?”

Alex didn’t grace him with a response. The question was rhetorical, and Alex hadn’t forgiven Yassen for earlier. His arm throbbed with pain, and would for at least a week. It would heal fully, but not quickly.

Yassen walked to his desk and put down the papers he had carried in. New information about people to be dragged in front of Alex and tortured to death, no doubt. “Go to bed.”

 “I need to brush my teeth.” Alex sat up, grudgingly. If he had tried to escape just ten minutes before, he could be gone by now.

“Want me to grab anything for you? Ropes, handcuffs, chains?”

Yassen frowned. “I’m not going to tie you up. I’ll wake up if you do anything besides lay in bed, and you don’t want that to happen. You’re still tired and need sleep.”

Alex nodded. That left a few possibilities. He could tiptoe and hope that Yassen _didn_ _’_ _t_ wake up, but that seemed unlikely. He could try to fight Yassen with the rattle-shiv, but he could picture all too easily how that fight ended with him in pain with a bullet hole in his hand. He could stab himself in the arm, and hope that with blood pouring out of his arm there would be confusion and an opportunity to escape. But no. Yassen would see that whatever mark Alex would make was shallow. And each plot would insure that in the future he would be restrained. His priority needed to be acquiring a better weapon than his shiv and, preferably, evading Yassen.

“Does tomorrow’s shooting practice involve me?”

“You have an imagination.” Cleaning his desk, Yassen gestured to the restroom. “Brush your teeth, wash your face, go to sleep.”

“Can I drain the tub now, or is that still a threat?”

“Anything can be a threat. Drain the tub, and don’t make me fill it again.”

“You mean make me fill it again.”

Yassen ignored that. Alex went to the restroom. While brushing his teeth, he took a deep look at his reflection. Shit. There were deep shadows under his eyes. His brown eyes were ringed with pink. A shallow blue bruise marred his cheek, and visible bruises peaked out of his shirt. If he escaped – no, when he escaped – there might be some questions.

He could feel the prickle of hair on his chin. He needed to shave. Alex grimaced, and returned to the other room.

“I need a razor.” 

Yassen made a noncommittal noise, not glancing at him. Alex crawled into the middle bed and covered himself in his sheets.

Without the fire the room was chilly, and he could probably get an extra blanket from the next bed over. But he could hear the fireplace was being cleaned and another fire built.

What would it take to get rid of Gregorovich? Yassen was dangerous. He couldn’t be at peak fitness after being shot in the chest three years ago, and he had to be nearing 40 by now. Yet compared to Alex, he was in prime shape. Alex had bruises all over his body, burns across an arm, and he was unarmed. 

 _When I was fourteen, a man in the Russian mafia handed me a revolver with one bullet in the chamber, and told me to point it at my head and shoot. If I did not make the choice to do so, he would have shot me himself, and I would have died._ Was that real? It could be a twisted story, made up to convince Alex to follow along, because the consequences of not fearing the right people would kill him.

No, Alex decided. It was true. Yassen had no reason to lie, and despite the burn on Alex’s wrist he wasn’t a sadist. Or a liar. Which mean that if he said he was doing this for Alex’s benefit, Yassen sincerely believed it. His one attachment in life, post joining SCORPIA, had been to John Rider. John Rider had betrayed him, eighteen years ago. Now that Alex was putting himself at risk, was Yassen’s desire to protect him stronger than the sting of the betrayal? Judging by what he’d seen, the answer was yes. Alex was Yassen’s weakness. But that grace would only extend so far--push him, and Alex would end up hurt. Not dead, but worse off than before.

And if in the escape attempt Alex ended up needing to use deadly force to escape, and Yassen was almost killed, Alex was almost positive that any grace protecting him would end. Yassen hadn’t survived this far in life by valuing relationships. Yassen hadn’t seemed to care about Alex even three days ago, before Alex had rescued the mobster's son.

Alex could escape. He had to. But it needed to be when someone else was watching him. Yassen seemed to be somewhat high up in this organization. Molotov or a crony would pull Yassen away for another meeting like the one tonight at some point. Alex couldn’t accompany him everywhere.

Assuming he was left alone tomorrow evening, what kind of stunt could he pull to escape? There had to be something.

Alex sat up, watching a new flame come alive. Yassen poked the firewood with a charcoal black poker, forcing the flame to spread. The room was instantly warmer, flooded with new heat. Yassen turned at the movement from the bed. He gave Alex a pointed look, and Alex lay back down. He closed his eyes and smiled.

Alex Rider had a plan.

\---AR--- 

Ben Daniels remembered Alex. Cub. The closed off teenager who had trained at Brecon Beacons with full grown men for two weeks, and helped the entire group escape RTI.

The teenager who, several months later, was wandering through Australia and diffusing nuclear bombs.

Now Alex was an adult, almost. He was eighteen. Legally, he was an adult. In America Alex could vote, and in Britain he could drink. Though Alex hadn’t really seemed the type, he could go to strip clubs now. Technically he could be a stripper. Ben’s younger brother had stripped for some cash for a couple years in university, not that Ben was allowed to tell their parents.

But Cub was a fucking kid! Ben had done stupid shit at 18, he’d been getting drunk at uni at 18. He hadn’t joined MI6 at 18, let alone 14. He hadn’t had the responsibility of anyone besides himself to look after, and at times that had been too much. Alex, meanwhile, had saved the world a few times over.

Now Alex was with an assassin who had reasons for a personal vendetta against his family. According to Mrs. Jones, Gregorovich had been trained by Alex’s father, John, back when the Cold War was just ending. But John was a double agent for MI6. John had trained Gregorovich, was apparently fond of him, and then had left him out to dry when his assignment ended.

Gregorovich had killed John’s brother, Ian. Ian had raised Alex. Alex had met Gregorovich, more than once, and been with the man when he was shot and apprehended by MI6 four years ago.

What relationship Alex and Gregorovich had, Ben couldn’t guess. But it didn’t sound good. No matter the fact that Alex had left all his previous encounters with Gregorovich alive, Ben couldn’t stop himself from thinking that you just don’t shoot the brother of the man you admire.

Ben’s plane was leaving for Moscow in 3 hours. Dangerous or not, limited knowledge of Russian or not, Ben was going to Russia. He would find Alex. And if Alex had stopped breathing by the time Ben found him, Ben was going to strangle Gregorovich with his bare hands.


	13. Childhood

Ch 13 - Childhood  
**“** **I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection.** **”** **Sigmund Freud**

Lost in thoughts of escape, Alex trailed Yassen through a series of hallways and stairs that looked progressively familiar.  At the door of the bunker where he’d been beat up, Alex stopped and sighed. “Oh. Good. A giant nuclear bunker. Does this game involve exploding bombs while I try to hide and beg for safety? And oh look, it’s the same henchman that beat me up and watched me last night. The two of us are getting uncomfortably acquainted. Would you mind switching up my guard duty?”

“Quiet,” Yassen remarked, opening the door for Alex and the henchman to step through, and shutting it after they’d all walked through.

The hangar had been changed in the past few days. Alex had been distracted by someone kicking him repeatedly when he was last in the room. All the same, he was sure it had been a faded white large room, with some stacked boxes across the far end. Now the hangar was freshly washed. A row of chairs stood on one end of the room, with a large weapons cabinet standing open there. Five black lines ran the length of the room.

And at the far end of the room stood four men, naked except for underwear and undershirts, shivering, with bags over their head and arms bound in front of them.

 “Gregorovich! Our audience!” Why had Alex ever thought the mobster was just a sane, if evil, business man? Increasingly he reminded Alex of Cray, with his games for Alex to pass, and amusement as people suffered.

“These men, spies from the government, came all the way from St. Peterburg! And I hear your family has some acquaintanceship with double agents. Virtual brothers in arms, these men and you then.”

Alex tried to imagine how Ian would react in this situation. Stand impassively and wait to escape? Resisting the urge to backtalk, Alex watched Molotov.

“We didn’t want to leave a mess for the government to clean up, but we are training new men, all the time. Yassen suggested this might be the ideal space for range shooting.” Molotov smiled cruelly. “Do you like the use of this place?”

Alex badly wanted to ignore the taunt. If he responded, there would be some form of punishment. Molotov wanted to see him squirm, though. Ignoring the taunts would only lead to more taunts to elicit a reaction. It was time to look uncomfortable, answer plainly, and bear the scene that would fuel his nightmares tonight.

“More than I like what I thought you’d be doing.”

“What did you think we would be doing?”

“Shooting at me.”

Molotov chuckled wryly. “My wife decided to keep you alive. I’m not sure how many men I’d trust to shoot at you without you dying at the end. Gregorovich and a few others might have that opportunity later though, now that you’ve given me the idea.”

“Happy to help.” Alex folded his arms to stop himself from shivering. It was cold in the bunker, and he didn’t want to show fear. If this did become an adventure in shooting at him, which he had a sour idea was more than an impossible likelihood, he didn’t have faith in surviving the experience. Even if Molotov wanted him alive. Yassen wouldn’t miss, he believed that. If Yassen was shooting at an apple at his head, Alex would leave with an intact head and a mess of apple sludge. If another gangster was aiming at him, well, Alex had seen better shots miss their targets on a range before.

“Don’t worry. You don’t need to do anything. Just watch and wave. Although if you want a moment with them, you could thank the men who play for your side, before they leave this life.”

“I don’t want to –“

“Enough.” Molotov put up a hand. “I have said this before. You will be silent unless asked.”

Memories of another time, a wild tea party with Cray, entered Alex’s mind unbidden. _Don_ _’_ _t interrupt or I_ _’_ _ll hand Yassen the scissors._

Molotov looked at him a moment with narrowed eyes. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, _sir._ ”

“Alright then.” Molotov gestured around the bunker. “A question for you to answer: what would you recommend for this place? How should we improve the bunker? More targets? Remove the blindfolds so they can see what’s happening? Make the targets move?”

“It could use some color.”

“Red, maybe? You could help contribute to that.”

Movement at the door drew Alex’s eye. Henchman number one, the one Alex had spent an uncomfortable amount of time with, suddenly looked vaguely uncomfortable.

Abhi wandered in, a personal guard trailing right behind him. He looked around the hangar with bright eyes. He glanced with confusion at the four blindfolded men, oblivious to the harm about to come to them. His eyes landed on his dad. He waved eagerly then, a shy smile breaking across his face.

Alex froze. Abhi saw him and waved at him as well.

“You’re going to shoot those men while he’s watching?”

Molotov smiled. The horror in Alex’s voice apparently amused him enough to ignore that Alex hadn’t been asked a question. “I’m going to teach him to shoot, and to defend himself from those who would harm him. What better way to teach than with people who actually intend to harm him?” At Alex’s shock, Molotov laughed. “Relax. He won’t be shooting today, just watching. Learning. Maybe holding a gun, if he’s lucky.”

In a low voice, aware that Abhi was looking over at his father and himself, Alex said “My uncle trained me to be a spy from the time I was born, and he didn’t let me watch movies with guns until I was 12. I went to a school for killers and they didn’t make me shoot at real people. If you love him you won’t-.”

“Alex, be quiet.” Yassen interrupted.  

Whipping around, Alex whispered angrily, “You think this is ok? You told me to go back to school, you told me that 14 is too young to kill, you probably still think I’m too young to be here now. You _can_ _’_ _t_ be ok with this.”  Gregorovich raised an eyebrow, challenging Alex to continue. Pleas to Yassen being ignored, Alex turned to Molotov. “Your employee doesn’t think this is a good idea. Look at him! What about his mom? Abhi’s mom can’t want her son to be a killer before 10.”

A snarl appeared on Molotov’s face. Heedless, Alex continued. “He should be in school, or playing a game with friends, not this!”

“Enough!”

 Alex stopped, furious but controlled. Yassen reached out for Alex’s arm, pulling him close to himself and further from his boss. Protection for Molotov from the angry teenager, if any outside was looking in, or a reminder to Alex to protect his own life first, if Alex was guessing. Molotov stepped closer regardless. He spoke softly to avoid being overheard by the approaching Abhi. “The next time you speak you’ll either be answering a question or I will have one of my men take you next door and put your mouth to other uses. I don’t want your opinions on my parenting, or my life. Is that clear?”

Alex glared. “Yes _, sir_.”

Before Abhi reached the group, Yassen pulled Alex to the side of the room. Molotov stopped to speak with his son.  Alex turned to avoid eye contact with the child. It seemed this time Molotov wanted them separate, and Yassen was here to enforce that boundary.

Down at the end of the room a mobster was distributing headphones to the assembled men, and unwrapping the cord a suspiciously small pair that might fit a child. Yassen steered Alex to that end of the room for ear protection. Alex held his with trembling hands, half cold, half furious.

“You’re not ok with this. You can’t be.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Yassen positioned Alex against the wall, his line of sight to the shuddering prisoners clear.

“He’s younger than me, he’s younger than you were when your parents died, he’s,” Alex paused, Yassen shooting him an unreadable glance at the mention of his parents. “He’s a child,” Alex tried again.

“He’ll survive.”

“Not as the same person!”

“Perhaps not.” Yassen met his gaze. “It’s not our concern.”

“Maybe it’s not yours,” Alex snapped. “ _I_ _’_ _m_ concerned.”

One of the henchman, laughing, approached the four blindfolded Russian forces. He had a gold watch on – Gold Watch. Gold Watch grabbed them and moved each man to the end of the black lines painted on the ground. On the other side of the room, four henchmen stood on the black lines, guns in hand.

Gold Watch pulled the blindfolds off each of the men, one by one. Blinking in the new light, the first two men stood stoic. The third began to whisper prayers under his breath. The fourth immediately dropped to his knees and began an Arabic refrain.

Gold Watch walked to the front of the room. Out of the bottom of the weapons cabinet he pulled out a bottle and a stack of glass cups. Gold Watch laid the glasses on the ground and filled them to roughly be a double.

Men crowded round and took glasses, clinking the edges together. Gold Watch caught Alex’s eye and grabbed a couple of glasses. He brought them over with a smile.

“Nyet,” Yassen said simply. Smirking, Gold Watch offered a glass to Alex.

“I don’t drink.”

Yassen translated and waved the man away.

A handful of the men lifted their glasses in the air. “Zazdarovje.”

Molotov himself swung back a cup of vodka and then gave what was left of the cup to his son. Abhi drank the remainder and made a face.

“He’s a terrible father.”

Yassen didn’t reply. He faced the four men shivering at the end of the bunker, and with apprehension Alex realized the other mafia men were putting their earplugs in and turning in the same direction. Alex put his earplugs in. Yassen released his arm long enough to place in his own ear protection. Gold Watch, smiling at Molotov, pulled out a strip of cloth. He put it around the eyes of one of the guards.

The first blindfolded guard put his gun in front of him and began to shoot. The screams coming from the first policeman made Alex grateful for his earplugs.

Alex looked at Abhi. He was hiding his eyes behind his hands. Molotov saw Alex’s attention and smirked. He reached down and removed Abhi’s hands.

Henchman Number 1 stepped forward to the firing line. Gold Watch tied a blindfold around his eyes.  Another guard was urging blindfolded Henchman 1 on with shouted directions for where to point the gun.

Abhi stared at the gun fire, wide eyed. Alex wanted to be sick. He was watching Abhi instead of the twisted exhibition, hoping for a ceasefire or someone to act on Abhi’s youth, and stop the show. Eventually a ceasefire of sorts came. The third guard to shoot took off his blindfold. Gold Watch waved his arm to signal the break. Taking ear plugs out and reloading, men exchanged jokes in Russian while walking to the weapons cabinet to reload on bullets and vodka.

Alex took his ear protection out and crumbled it in his hand. Yassen had taken his own off already.

 “I could stop this…I could act out, and he could punish me instead,” Alex whispered, knowing it was futile as he spoke the words.

“And Abhi would then watch you be tortured. He’s seen your face before – which will affect him more?” Cold, certain logic from a contract killer. What did Alex expect? Yassen was right.

“He’s done everything to me. What can he do next?” It was a lie, an attempt at bravado. Molotov had done far from everything to him.

“He could hand Abhi a gun.” Yassen squeezed Alex’s shoulder. “Stop watching him.”

Alex examined the room. Two of the men were dead, one was moaning while blood poured from a shoulder wound, and the last was still blindfolded and unhurt.  A bulky mafia henchman began wrapping one of the bodies with a clear tarp for disposal.

Tears were streaming down Abhi’s face. The child stared through the tears at the dead body closest to him.

“A good lesson, no?” Molotov asked, approaching them both. “I will have to congratulate my son. He’s watched it all with more grace than Alex here yesterday.”

“He’s had enough.” Yassen nodded at the boy, still holding Alex close to him with a tight hand on his shoulder.

“He’s learning. It’s a good influence for a child, to see the realities of the world.”

Alex badly wanted to tell Molotov about Drevin, the man who would have had his own son’s finger cut off for a publicity stunt. He had said something similar about how Paul would have learned about reality through the loss of his finger. And now Paul Drevin didn’t have a father.

A glance at the Russian mafia boss kept him quiet. Yassen was arguing to end the “reality show” already. Anything Alex said would aggravate Molotov in the opposite direction, and Abhi would be kept here through to the end.

“That child is making you soft.” Molotov scowled at Alex.

“No, but they’ve both had enough. Alex saved your son’s life. Abhi is 9. If you want Alex to not influence Abhi, he should stay out of this.”

“He put my son in danger!” Molotov snapped. Alex instinctively moved back, against the wall. He had no desire to be slapped again. He thought he might not be able to stop himself from punching back.

“The men we are shooting at put your son in danger. Alex has no control over the Russian special forces.”

“The men being shot at are victims of a tenuous relationship with the government. That relationship is because the president wants this pitiful boy alive and well.”

A quiet impasse ensued. Molotov sneered at Alex.

“I am leaving. We have financial reports to examine.” Yassen released Alex’s shoulder with a slight shove in Molotov’s direction. “Send Abhi to his mom. Keep Alex if you want. Send him back when you’re done.”

Yassen headed towards the door, not glancing back. Alex watched Molotov contort his face in quick fury and then smooth it out again in a façade of calm.

Alex clenched his fists. Yassen wasn’t here to stop him. Alex would fight rather than put Abhi through a shooting exercise where the target was, essentially, a prisoner of war. Molotov could put Alex on the shooting range if he wanted to. Better Alex than some innocent.

“Go.”  Molotov scowled at the door Yassen had just left through. Alex didn’t move immediately, and Molotov turned his venomous glare on Alex. “Go!”

Outside the door Yassen was waiting. Whether he expected Alex to come out or was waiting as a precaution, Alex couldn’t tell. With an inscrutable glace Yassen began walking down the hall, retracing their earlier steps to the room.

Refusing to look back, Alex followed.

\---AR---

Gregorovich was betrayed by Alex’s father, and now he had Alex. Collectively, the team agreed that being held by Gregorovich not a great place for Alex to stay.

The conversation had been far briefer than they would have liked. Not long into the call the Russians had asked for their phone back.

The story revealed in the conversation had given them more questions and a few critical pieces of information. Not enough, but information. Yes, Alex knew Yassen Gregorovich. Perhaps more importantly, Gregorovich knew him. The killer had been trained by Alex’s father. He had kidnapped Sabina and Alex as kids because Alex had stolen something from Damien Cray – something the singer needed to explode nuclear warheads all over the world.

“Fucking Damien Cray,” DC moaned morosely. “I still hear his songs on my 90s station back home. All the time. I thought he had crashed in the island while high on drugs.”

 “Damn, I liked that dude!” Brandon mourned.

“Gregorovich can’t want Alex dead. He refused to kill the Pleasure girl and Alex, and then the singer shot him.”

“I listen to Cray’s Christmas CD every winter,” Brandon added.

“No,” Harris said with certainty. “She said he said he didn’t kill children. Alex isn’t a child. He was barely a child then, he had to be 16 or 17. Now he’s a kid, sure, but he’s an adult. Gregorovich will kill him now if he thinks it’s what’s best.”

“And Alex helped take down Gregorovich’s old employers. That can’t help,” Brandon said darkly, finally moving past his broken-heart. ‘

“He helped destroy SCORPIA—that’s not small. They were notorious.”

“SCORPIA was massive,” James wondered aloud. “There’s no way that a single kid could have helped take them down unless he had a lot of resources. Maybe he was working for someone else—Sabina told us it wasn’t her story to tell, Hyde said it was classified. Alex would have needed resources to do anything to an organization of that size.”

“I heard about SCORPIA when I worked with DHS,” Lowery added. “I worked with them after 9/11, so the organization had just been created. And SCORPIA’s name came up more than once.”

“Alex would have been with an institution then. It’s not like he’s Superman, taking down Lex Luther by himself,” DC agreed.

“So what, he was working with, who, the CIA? The feds?”

“He’s from Britain. It would have been MI5 or 6.”

“I guess if his dad had been a spy—”

“A spy that trained the fucker holding Alex hostage,” Ayad interrupted.

“Yeah. And his uncle—”

“That Gregorovich killed!”

“Yes, we heard, we were all on the fucking call Ayad! If both his dad and his uncle were killed in action as spies, which is all she’ll tell us, then it has to be MI6. Right? James Bond was MI6 and he was a spy. MI5 are like the feds. No one calls the goddamned FBI a spy agency.”

“Yeah, they kind of do,” DC said. “Right? Maybe? I’m trying to think of the times the FBI spied on the X-Men during the last comics run, I think they called those agents spies.”

“That’s Marvel, DC. Don’t use Marvel as your reference point.”

“Hmmm.”’

Harris sighed. “Brandon, what did Gregorovich say while you were with him? Before he sent you off, did he mention Alex? Look at him funny? _Anything_?”

Brandon shrugged helplessly. “I’ve been running through the time in my head, but there’s nothing. Alex was in the backseat and he never said anything. I looked back at him a couple of times in the rearview mirror and he looked more scared than anything, more than I’ve seen him before. Then Gregorovich let me out and told me to walk until help, and he wasn’t even looking at the car. I rounded a bend in the road before Gregorovich got back in the car – last time I looked back at him he was a dark shape outside the car. If he knew Alex, maybe he was letting him sweat it out before they talked. Maybe they didn’t talk.”

“Have we considered,” Sylvester wondered, “That Alex really doesn’t mean anything to him? Genuinely? He is a contract killer, he had to be good at compartmentalizing. All the past stuff with Alex, it could be nothing to him.”

“He killed Alex’s uncle,” Ayad stated flatly. “Dudes don’t just kill dudes that are brothers with the men that trained them. Those same dudes don’t just refuse to kill their mentor’s son when it means they get shot.”

“Pleasure said Cray was crazy. Gregorovich didn’t know refusing to kill the kids would mean getting shot. She and Alex hadn’t expected it.”

“Doubt she was shook up over it. Gregorovich kidnaps her then gets shot, it’s almost a happy ending.”

“Until he’s a zombie.”

“Until he’s not dead,” Brandon agrees. “Which tells us why Alex was going through all of this to start with. He’s raised by an uncle who gets killed by Gregorovich. He becomes friends with a girl who gets kidnapped by Gregorovich. He’s living with that girl and her parents, and her dad limps because of a bomb placed by Gregorovich. That’s a lot of motive for him to try and take that man out when he has the chance. Someone does to my kid sister what that man did to Alex’s sister, I’d kill him too.”

“No,” Harris insisted. “Alex isn’t a killer. This is the first time he’s even been this impulsive. He’s a twenty-year-old kid with a lot of anger. I don’t think he’d have shot Gregorovich if he got the chance.”

“He never got that chance, so we’ll never know.”

Dark looks passed their faces. James broke the tension with a snort. “We’ve kind of given up on keeping our intel gathering covert ops, haven’t we?”

“Yep. Russians have to know everything by now.”

“Ignore that.” Harris stood decisively. “All that information and we still don’t know the most important thing. How do we get Alex back?”

Ayad sighed. “There’s only two things we can do, but you won’t like them.”

“What?”

Lowery answered for Ayad, regret spun across his face. “Hope, and pray.”

\--AR---

Alex was pacing, too furious to sit still. “He was using children! He was using his son. How can you work with men like, how can you work, you can’t, even you have to—fuck!”

 “Sit down.”

Yassen’s laptop, open in front of him, sat ignored. The man watched Alex warily.

Kicking the bed closest to him, Alex growled. “Fuck!”

“Alex.” Yassen waited until Alex controlled himself enough to meet the man’s eyes. “Sit down, please.”

Bitterly Alex sat on his bed. He swore under his breath. For color he threw in curses in Arabic, Spanish, French, and Russian. It didn’t help. He hit himself in his burnt arm, gritting his teeth with the pain. Perhaps kindly, the bastard watching him didn’t comment.

“How did you even get here?

“A van,” Yassen said dryly. “You were in it.”

“Not this church. How did you get _here_ , holding your dead mentor’s son hostage. Wanted dead by dozens of countries. I saw your file when my team was given this task.” Alex hid his face in his hands momentarily to collect himself. Screaming at the man would accomplish nothing. “You let Brandon go, and you didn’t want Abhi there. You could have been a decent person.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“You could have!” Yassen was still watching as if Alex were a bomb ticking down.

Alex counted down in his head, quelling his frustration into something productive. Information. He could use information. Something to navigate Yassen’s mind with. “Ash told me about you. Before you joined SCORPIA.”

“Ash?” Yassen glanced at his laptop and lowered the screen.

“He was my godfather. Joined SCORPIA after I was born. Killed my parents. Tried to kill me. You put a knife in his stomach when you were nineteen.”

Yassen thought for a moment. “I remember him. I didn’t know he joined SCORPIA.”

“He joined because of you. He couldn’t work active duty after you stabbed him.”

“He should have stayed down after I shot him. I knew then that he was wearing armor.”

“Funny.” Alex didn’t smile. “Ash’s bosses said the same thing.”

“And he is dead now?”

“No one survives me, apparently.” Alex grabbed the pillow at the end of his bed and punched it. “Fuck.”

Yassen frowned slightly. “He killed your parents?”

“You leave him permanently injured, he kills his best friend. Even Steven, _obviously._ And then he went and found everything about you that he could, because you ruined his life. And then he did fuck all with that information, even though it would have saved Ian’s life and at least done _something_ good if he’d gotten revenge on the right person.”

Again Alex punched the pillow, in a round of three. “I asked him about you, when you were supposed to be dead.”

“And then he tried to kill you.” Yassen looked unsurprised. He’d met enough men trying to kill Alex, apparently, to be shocked by another. Never mind that Ash had been his dad’s best friend.

“Before that. We were on a plane and I told him I wanted to know about you. He told me your parents died in an explosion and an illness six months apart, and you spent five years travelling Russia to find SCORPIA.”

Shaking his head, the Russian replied. “Neither of those things is correct.”

“So what? Your parents are alive and well in Saint Petersburg?”

Alex waited, half expecting Yassen to end the discussion there. This was personal. Sure, they’d talked about Alex’s life, but half of SCORPIA and MI6 talked to Alex about his family’s life. Spies had no privacy from criminals, apparently. Yassen probably hadn’t talked about his family in years. Ash had spent a long time looking for the information he had given Alex. If Yassen was telling the truth—and Alex had already decided Yassen wasn’t a liar—none of Ash’s efforts bore fruit. His personal file was lies to deceive the people trying to manipulate him.

“They were killed when I was 14. I left my village before the same fate befell me.”

Similar to what Ash had said, then. SCORPIA must have obscured the details just enough to tell some truth about Yassen’s life while taking the power from anyone that captured him and tried to manipulate him with news about his parents. If Alex thought he had any chance of manipulating Yassen he try that himself.

“Did you join SCORPIA at 19?”

“Yes. I wasn’t looking for them when it happened.”

“Who were you looking for? What were you looking for?”

A faraway look entered Yassen’s eyes. “A way out of where I was.” His gaze shifted to meet Alex’s, and he shook his head slightly. “After I joined SCORPIA, your father tried to persuade me not to become a killer.”

“I thought you liked my dad. You should have listened.”

Yassen smiled curiously. “You should have listened when I told you to go back to school.”

“Millions of people would be dead.”

“Yes. But you should not have come after me now. Millions are not on the line. Perhaps thousands, if the drug we purchased is as addictive as promised.”

Alex was about to respond, when the irony caught him. He laughed, semi hysterical. “Do you remember Damian Cray?”

Yassen’s bemused expression said that _yes,_ he distinctly remembered the crazed billionaire who had shot him. “He hated drugs. He thought they killed enough people to justify nuking millions more. He said _you_ hated drugs. Your mafia is spreading those drugs, and my men were going to stop Rousseau from selling you the ability to manufacture more.”

“And yet I bought the drug.”

“Well, you were being paid, right? Doesn’t matter that one boss is trying to rid the world of drugs and another wants to spread them, that’s not _your_ problem.” Alex grimaced. Terrible scenarios were running through his head, and he could feel the headache coming on. His counselor, three years ago, had suggested the headaches were related to PTSD. With enough time, his headaches had gone away for a while. Now they were coming back. He wondered why – his life was suddenly so calm. “If this church was burning down, and Abhi was on your way out, would you even stop to pick him up?”

“My boss would say that an incidental part of my job description is personal protection for himself and his family. If his children were in an easily accessible location, I would remove them from the premises. If his son was out of the way, I would secure my safety first.” Yassen added, after a slight hesitation, “I don’t think you were wrong to save Molotov’s son instead of escaping, two days ago. It is what makes you Alex.”

“You wouldn’t have done it.”

“No.”

“Would my dad?”

Yassen deliberated. “I don’t know.”

“Really?” Alex wasn’t sure why he continued.

“Really what?” Yassen examined Alex’s face. “Really, I don’t know. The man I knew—if his mission was on the line a single life, even that of a child, would have been forfeit. Perhaps he would have tried. I never knew him as a spy, only a killer.”

“And he was good at it.” Alex said, remembering conversations with Mrs. Jones after he had defected. “MI6 faked some of his kills. But he was still good at it, at killing.”

“Very good. To become that successful, it requires sacrifice.”

“He left me alone, so I guess I was one of the sacrifices,” Alex muttered. It was hardly a fair accusation, and judging by Yassen’s face they both knew it.

“He wanted to leave, for you.”

“He didn’t do it soon enough.”

Yassen contemplated him. Blue eyes searched his face. Several minutes passed, and Alex realized their conversation was over. He was about to lay down to sleep, or at least to pretend to sleep so that he would be left alone and ride out the pain in his head, when Yassen added a final note.

“If there was a fire in this church, and you were handcuffed out of my way, I would let you out before escaping the building. That will have to be my good deed, Alex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working on this chapter for a couple of weeks, in slow development. Feedback appreciated.
> 
> I've also uploaded the first part of another story I've been working hard on - same characters (well...Yassen and Alex), slightly less emotional breakdowns and violence. 
> 
> Feedback appreciated on that as well.


	14. Close Calls

CH  14  Close Calls

 **“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”** **―[C.S. Lewis](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis)**

His phone said it was nearing 2 in the morning when he woke, and for a second Yassen feared waking strapped to a table.

No, his time in MI6’s tender care was over. Yassen shook his head and sat up. Something more immediate had woken him, some person or noise interrupting the environment. Seconds later the source was clear.

Alex hadn’t left his bed, but he was clearly awake. Muffled crying originated in the tangled mess of blanket covering the young man. Yassen allowed his eyes to fully adjust. The blanket was shaking as well.

Yassen considered ignoring the sounds. He could fall back asleep and would likely wake if Alex began to move around. All the same, leaving Alex awake and alone would show poor control of the situation. Leaving Alex alone could also be the wrong decision for Alex.

Yassen approached Alex’s bed.

“You need to sleep, little one.”

Alex shoved a blanket away from his face and glared. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” he whispered in bitter self-defense.

“You’re my prisoner. Everything you do is something to do with me.”

Alex pushed himself onto an elbow and rubbed his eyes with the other hand. Tear streaks marked clear red paths down his face. “No, it’s not. Go back to sleep, I’m not going to slip out.”

 “I’ll go back to sleep when you do.”

“That will be awhile,” Alex muttered.

Yassen sat on the bed next to Alex’s. “Then I’ll wait awhile.”

Half an hour passed in paced breathing and muffled crying. Abruptly Alex interrupted the still. “How do you know that my dad wanted to leave MI6 for me?” The boy’s brown eyes were still rimmed in tears.

“You don’t think he told me, between lying about his intentions?” Alex looked over in faint surprise at the dry sarcasm. After a pause he grimaced.

“People don’t leave SCORPIA unless they’re in a body bag.”

“No.” Yassen considered how truthful he should be. “It was a recent revelation.”

“You made it up so I feel better?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know?”

Yassen considered the truth. These memories were not ones he cared to revisit. “When I woke from the coma, MI6 decided to dangle certain information to get me to talk. Much of it was not what I wanted to hear.”

Alex reburied his head between his pillow and his arm.  There was no sign to indicate the boy was still listening.

Yassen searched his memories, reluctantly deciding that if he was to share this part of his life—learning about John’s betrayal—it should be to Alex. “They decided you were my weakness. Not incorrectly, as it turned out. Their interrogator told me John worked for MI6. He asked if I would have still shot Ian Rider if I knew he worked for the same side as John.”

In the darkness Alex flinched. In truth, MI6 hadn’t asked the exact question. They had tried guilt instead. They laid out the truth about John Rider in bare terms, and then laid out the lies SCORPIA had told him to continue the charade of John Rider’s legacy.

And then they had tried to place fault for what had come of Alex. Over and over they had asked questions implying that their use of Alex had been a decision made for them by outside organizations such as SCORPIA. Likely they only continued in that line of thought because they first time they had blamed Ian’s death by Yassen as the cause for Alex joining MI6, Yassen had reacted.

“They told me the truth about Albert Bridge eventually. I spent weeks refusing to believe the truth. Then they showed me footage of John and Helen boarding their flight to France.  Both alive and well, days after John was supposed to have died in England.”

Yassen paused. “After, I finally asked where you were, and if you were alive. I had been waiting for them to announce they had killed you when you joined SCORPIA, and I didn’t want to know.”

Alex choked back a dejected laugh. “Instead I destroyed SCORPIA. You must have been pissed.”

Reviewing the curses he had uttered, Yassen agreed that pissed would have been an accurate definition of his mood. He remembered telling his interrogator in extraneous detail what would happen to Alex Rider if the child was ever again in his presence. For two days he had retraced every harm inflicted on others during his career and replaced the true victim with Alex in his mind.

That rage had faded in time. Months in solitary confinement with small breaks for severe interrogation practices had directed Yassen’s anger at MI6 in full force. If it had not led to direct forgiveness, the time at least allowed for a modicum of apathy.

Although, Yassen remembered the momentary rage experienced when Alex dared to challenge him in the parking lot. The arrogant boy had felt sure of himself enough to announce his moves before he took them. Foolish. Yassen had felt more than a flicker of satisfaction at seeing Alex break down.

Yassen settled on the least harmful truth…the eventual one. “I was glad you were alive. I wanted you to go to school and stay in America. It seemed safer than any alternative.”

“You could have killed me when you first met me. It would have been easier.”

“Many things are easy. That doesn’t mean they’re best.”

Alex buried his face in his pillow. Cautiously, Yassen placed a hand on the blanket over Alex’s shoulder blade. Alex didn’t move away. Slowly Alex’s sobs subsided, and his breathing slowed.

Yassen rested his hand on Alex’s shoulder long past the point where Alex had slipped into sleep.

\--AR--

“I was thinking of teaching Abhi to shoot while your little former spy watches”

Yassen listened to the suggestion impassively.

Molotov poured two fingers of vodka into a cup of coke. Acerbically, he challenged Yassen. “Do you still think it will ruin my son?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“What did you say then?”

Yassen sighed. “You are playing a dangerous game with Alex and your son. You wanted to kill Alex because he rescued your son and Abhi scraped his face in the process.  Now you want to put them together to torment Alex. You should keep them apart.”

“Abhi is becoming old enough to see what I do for a living.”

“Perhaps. He will not admire you for tormenting a boy the age of his tutor.”’

 “He is my son and I say he is old enough.” Molotov flashed his phone. “My wife agrees. I talked to her, and she said her brother was put in charge of slaughtering their older horses at 13. Text her if you want to defend my son’s innocence.”

“Abhi is your son,” Yassen agreed. “And you’ve left me in charge of Alex. I’ve had enough. The boy is nothing to me except a chance to get back at a dead man, and I have had that opportunity. Alex spends his time terrified I will do something to the few people he has left. There is little else I could do to him, and nothing else I would want to.”

 Molotov shook his head. “I’m stuck with the worse relations with our government in years because of that boy. Why shouldn’t I have a little fun?”

Yassen reached for his phone. Now might be a time to text Efram and insure Alex was alive. No-he had left his phone with his laptop. “Perhaps instead we should use the time to fix this problem?”

“We can use the wretched boy to fix this problem. Show the government his abused corpse and this will be over.”

“We’re not killing him.”

“Or hurting him either, because of family sentiment,” Molotov mocked.

Yassen raised his eyebrows. “Do you want me to tie him to a chair and whip him with a cable?”

Molotov smiled sourly. “It’d be a change of pace to hear his screams instead of his whining. A soft melody to rock you to sleep at night. Another idea—strip him and throw him at the dog Misha keeps. You could stop it before he was irreparably damaged, or not.”  

 “If you ask I will,” Yassen replied levelly.  “But I’ve had my revenge.”

“I didn’t picture your revenge ending so easily. Weren’t you shot because of him?”

“He has enough demons without me.” Yassen pushed a folder across the desk separating them. “My recommendations for the manufacturing warehouses and supply lines.”

Molotov wrinkled his noise before accepting the change of pace. “Before our new pharmaceutical enters the market, how is our financial situation?”

“Supply lines have been interrupted. This will make it difficult for us to maintain our income flows.” Yassen flipped through the file to pull out a map with several red x’s inscribed on blue lines. “The FSB has become involved. The bodies we sent back to the government included a Saint Petersburg politician’s nephew.”

“So we recover those supply lines. How long?”

“It depends on the government.” Yassen considered. “They will back off sooner if we send them Alex. Alive.”

“It’s too soon.” Molotov scowled. “You want him alive because you’ve gone soft over him – don’t deny it. I want him dead. Either way, the government crossed a line when they attacked us at my home, with my family around. The boy stays.”

Yassen nodded, accepting. “Then it will take a while. Two of our supply lines run close to police headquarters in the region. Those were only functioning through corruption. Others have key points identified and attacked by the authorities. Four of our packers were imprisoned yesterday in Moscow. It could be months for our new supply to hit the market, like this.”

“I’m not going to keep the boy for months.” Molotov scowled. “But our victims at that point may have irreparably pitted the authorities against our former compromises. I’m aware.”

“I will look into it.”

“Call the police commissioner in the area of our new warehouse. Get his opinion. Try to reach a local ceasefire.”

“Sir.” Yassen gathered his papers to leave.

\--AR--

“Y’all,” DC said. “Is someone hiding a phone? Cause I hear ringing.”

Four pairs of eyes swung to the couch, where a borrowed Russian phone with Alex’s sim card had been left shoved in between the cushions and the frame.  Harris started, then rushed to grab Ayad from the bedrooms.

Eyeing the other members of the group, Brandon reached for the phone. Drawing it out of it’s ‘secure’ location, he pressed ‘accept call’.

“Hello?”

“Fuck, Brandon. You’re alive!”  

“Alex.” Brandon sat frozen. DC maneuvered the phone out of his reach and hit the speaker symbol. A hushed voice now projected around the room, Ayad quietly gathering a pen and pad of hotel papers from the desk.

“I tried everyone’s numbers, I didn’t know who to call, thought I should at least call my number since I remembered it. Listen, I have information."

"How are you calling us?" Harris asked.

"I’m free, for a moment. I knocked out my guard. There's a bunch of people down the hall, I can't go anywhere, and Gregorovich could find me any moment, but I’m planning this right he won’t tell his boss I made this call. Listen!”

“No, Alex, what’s happening? You have to be careful. Your dad betrayed Gregorovich and he wants revenge.”

“Stop! Sorry, but hell, Harris, I don’t know why you know that, but I’ve been with Yassen for most of a week now, do you think I’ve just been tied in a closet oblivious? If he wanted revenge, I’d be dead by now.  I know what Yassen wants, and it’s not revenge.”

Brandon stunned out of silence. “What does he want?”

“Mostly for me to go away. It’s not important, he’s not the problem. We have more important matters right now.” Alex insisted. “You have to focus! The mafia wants to start production on the drug we were supposed to destroy.”

“Are you hurt? Anything deadly? Can you walk? Where are you?"

“Yes, no, yes, I don’t know. It’s a church, Russian orthodox, there’s some kind of insane nuclear bunker attached. We’re probably within 5 hours of Moscow, it took us a few hours to drive here after the Russian version of S.W.A.T. bombarded us to all hell, I think they lost a couple of men in the fight but I couldn’t tell, everything was-“

DC cut in. “Are you with Gregorovich?

“This is his phone. He’ll be back soon.” Alex’s voice dropped as if he were talking with himself. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, he won’t be happy with this.”

“Gregorovich is dangerous, Alex, where is he?”

“Ignore that, are you tracing this?”

“The Russians should be tracing it.  They’re probably listening in.  We’re kind of tied up as hostages for the U.S. right now.”

“Join the fucking club. At least your Russians aren't bloody torturing you. Look, do you have a pen?"

"Yes," D.C. said, eyeing Ayad. Ayad fumbled with the cheap pen and nodded, ready to write down the details.

"I don't know how to say this, I just started the alphabet - look, there's an address, there's a 623, and the word for Lenin, 3, then a H, switched N, some xk combo, h, switched n, switched n with a smile over it. Then the next word is pronounced nov, gorod I think."

"Nizhny Novgorod is a city."

"Ok, that's it. Then a list of coordinates." Alex dictated the coordinates hastily. "That's it."

  
Ayad indicated with a thumbs up that he'd gotten it all. "Is this where they're producing the drugs?"

"I don't know what it is, Yassen left this paper out, he was gone when I woke up. But something's going on, he's working for Molotov and the guy killed a bunch of Russian cops yesterday in front of me, like a weird show. He has kids with him - a little boy and two babies, and their mom. Let the government know he has kids here if they come in."

There was a pause, and Alex’s voice returned, frantically whispering,” Don’t talk, someone’s outside.”

At first the line stayed quiet. Then there was a soft distant voice. Harris pressed the phone to his ear, hoping the speaker would amplify at least a small amount. A soft voice said something distantly. “-you're awake.” The voice disappeared for a second and Harris listened attentively, several men grouping close around.

Clear voices erupted from the phone.

“Where is Efram?”

Alex replied. “I don’t know. The restroom?”

Gregorovich’s voice changed. “And my phone?”

“You don’t have it? Maybe the guard has it. Keep track of your stuff, don’t blame me.” Brandon swallowed. Alex’s voice was defensive. Worse, the kid was stammering.

Static represented the sound of items on the other end of the line being picked up, moved around, put quickly down. Loud tapping announced Gregorovich finding the cell phone.

“Wait, this isn’t wh—"

The line clicked.

“Fuck,” Ayad gasped. “Are the Russians tracking this?”

“We need to call our boss and see if they can track the call first,” Harris announced.

 Ringing interrupted their plans. Harris paused, looking at the ringing phone in his hand.

Cautiously, Harris answered. “Hello?

Gregorovich’s voice coldly answered. “Who is this?”

“Who are you?” Harris asked.

“Answer me, or you’ll hear screams.”

Harris responded truthfully. “We were the ones who took you captive back in the park in Kazan. We work with Alex. Listen, he said you wanted him gone, we can trade.” Brandon’s eye twitched nervously. “We’ll pay a ransom.”

There was a moment of silence on the line.

“Do you have an American bank account? Or a Swiss account that’s untraceable?”

Gregorovich ignored that question. “What did Alex tell you about where he is?”

Brandon shivered. “Is he hurt?”

“He will be hurt if you don’t answer my questions, and you will hear it.”

With sudden force, Harris answered. “Alex said you were in a museum, outside Moscow. We can negotiate, we know you’re reasonable—"

“No.” Gregorovich stated. They could hear the phone being put down.

Suddenly there was a scream, muffled as if Alex had a sock shoved into mouth. Brandon flinched. Ayad clenched his hands into fists.

“Try again,” Gregorovich said. “Where did Alex say we were?”

“Alex didn’t say, he didn’t know. Alex just asked if we were tracking it.”

“He would have told you more. There were 3 minutes on that call. You have five seconds.”

“It was a church!” Brandon burst out.

“Continue.”

“That’s all – you’re in a church, that’s all Alex knows. Look, you said you would let him go, after getting away, it’s been 5 days. His name is Alex, he has a family.”

Ayad frantically shook his head, reminding Harris that Gregorovich had known Alex’s father. Had been betrayed by Alex’s father. Gregorovich had held Alex’s sister, or stepsister, or whoever Sabina was by blood to Alex, at gunpoint before. Gregorovich had killed Alex’s uncle. Swallowing against the fear that he had just made his case worse, Harris continued. “They’re waiting for him to come home. You have to let him go.”

“I have to?”

“He’s not worth anything to you dead,” Brandon pled. “We can pay, we’re working with someone to form a ransom, please don’t – he’s just a kid, just 20.”

“Eighteen.”

Glances were exchanged, and Harris shook his head to stop anyone from correcting the man.

Harris tried a different tact. “Alex is basically a kid. He’s not dangerous to you. We hear you know him. Whatever he was doing, he doesn’t know anything.”

“He’s a good person, he has people that care about him.” Ayad looked around the group, trying desperately to come up with information to personify Alex to the assassin. “He likes soccer and—"

“Stop.” There was another silence from the other end. “What is your email address?”

“What?”

“Your email address.”

 “What are you thinking of sending?” Images of Alex, bloody and lashed to a chair, today’s newspaper propped in his lap, floated through Harris’s mind.

There was another muffled screaming sound, this one intermingled with a cry. Brandon looked away from the phone as if the sounds were tangible.

“This is your last chance. Do you have an email where I can reach you?”

“Yes.” Harris rattled out his email, and then repeated the address.

“You say you have a ransom. I will be in touch, within 48 hours.” Gregorovich sounded finished with the conversation.

“Wait,” Harris rushed, “If we could have a moment, please, can we talk to Alex?”

“You already have.”

The line went dead.

A moment later a text arrived. Brandon read it, at first to himself and out loud to the group. “Russian operations will be disappointed. My phone is untraceable.”

A second text interrupted Brandon’s reading.  “If you call or text this number again, your operative will regret it.”

Ayad summarized the group feeling in one word: “Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thrive off comments. Please do leave them.


	15. Memories

“Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

 

“That hurts,” Alex complained. His shoulder smarted and ached where it had been twisted a moment before. For a split second it felt like it had been dislocated. Wincing, he pushed himself off his stomach, and into a sitting position against the headrest.

“Yes, that was the point,” Yassen agreed. “Stay there.” The lack of malice in his voice was enough to keep Alex in bed. Sarov had responded with the same emptiness years ago after Alex rejected his offer to join him and attempted his airport call for help. In that situation, Sarov had made the decision to let Alex die.

Yassen opened the restroom door and disappeared. Alex swallowed. Efram, no longer the nameless henchman, was inside, tied to the bath handle as Yassen had threatened to do to Alex two days ago. He had gone down faster than Alex dared hope. Quiet words in Russian were being exchanged. Alex waited with dread to see what happened.

If Yassen killed Efram, Alex was dead. There was no way around it. Leaving Efram alive symbolized permitting failure, if anyone knew that Alex had successfully overpowered a guard. So if Efram walked out of here that would mean that, officially, there had been no failure. No escape attempts. No one here would know what Alex had done, save Efram and Yassen. Efram wouldn’t tell anyone else what had occurred. The mafia could not remain strong by allowing such weakness to continue. The henchman’s bruises from their struggle were on his head, covered by his hair, and if there was swelling or pain the man wouldn’t show it. Yassen would not have to admit to leaving his phone within reach of a prisoner. Officially no phone call would have taken place. Whatever reckoning Yassen would inflict on Alex would hurt, but he wouldn’t kill Alex. Yassen had argued for keeping Alex alive and he wouldn’t reverse that decision when officially nothing had happened.

Killing Efram meant admitting a failure. A failure to pick the correct guard. A failure in leaving Alex untied while his minder went off on a morning jog or breakfast meeting. A failure in leaving a phone unattended, and some series of coordinates alone. Possibly the coordinates meant nothing, but why have them if that was the case?

If Yassen admitted that the phone call had occurred, Alex would be too much trouble to keep alive. Or if he was kept alive, it would be in so much pain that he would wish he wasn’t. Alex dearly hoped he’d calculated this correctly.

Efram walked shakily out of the restroom. Alex exhaled. Efram turned a gaze in his direction. Alex forced a cheeky grin. Payback for his beating. Efram paled and fled. Yeah, Alex could understand that reaction. He wouldn’t want to fail an assassin either. His grin dropped.

“How did you knock him out?”

Yassen hovered in the restroom doorway, arms crossed. His gaze gave nothing away.

“I pretended to throw up.” Alex crossed his own arms, defensive. “He came to see how I was doing, and I stabbed him in the ankle. He looked down and I hit him in the head and tied him up in the minute he was out.”

“And?”

“Maybe I kicked him a couple times too.” Alex muttered. “It’s nothing he didn’t do to me.”

Yassen said nothing.

“He beat me up! He would have done it again if you asked. You could have chosen someone else to watch me, instead of that fucking prick.”

“Had it occurred to you that I perhaps chose a man who would follow orders? One who would leave you alone and not respond to petty insults? And now I will have to chose someone else?” Yassen asked mildly.

“It’s not like he’d in a coma, it was just a blow to the head.” Alex flinched. He probably could have argued without referencing a coma.

Yassen held up a painted wooden stick, one end rounded and another shaved into a point. “Where’d you get this?”

There was no point lying. “Molotov’s office in Moscow. I tripped the first time I was in there.”

“Hmmm.”

Agitated energy forced dread onto Alex. Worse was coming. He had to fill the silence before it became a discussion on how Alex was going to pay for his rebellion. “I did you a favor. He’d going to be twice as eager to make you happy now. He knows you’ll kill him otherwise.” Yassen frowned and traced a finger over the curve of the rattle. Alex bit his lip. “Let me guess, you said, ‘Do not disappoint me again, and I will not mention the failure to Darth Sidious.’ He doesn’t want to upset the emperor. Really, he’s going to be your man all the way now.”

In Alex’s practice with interrogation techniques, Harris had repeated endlessly that if captured by an enemy combatant or other opponent, Alex should say nothing. U.S. militants were permitted to say their name and rank, if Alex remembered correctly. MI6 never bothered to train Alex on resistance to interrogation besides one quick ‘abduction’ by SAS RTI specialists during his two weeks in Wales, but Alex was relatively sure that they would probably have told him something similar. Say his name and that he knew nothing. In his experience, the villains would resort to torture relatively quickly, so he never had to do much besides deny that he knew what was happening until the stakes were raised. The one tactic no one had ever taught Alex about was the silent treatment.

What was Alex supposed to do when the interrogators weren’t interrogating?

Yassen, apparently, was quite competent at playing the quiet interrogator. It made Alex uncomfortable. Yassen _knew_ that Alex had done something. He knew roughly what had occurred, if not the content of the call. And Alex wanted to tell him just to stop this dreadful waiting. What would the consequences be? He couldn’t say that he’d revealed the coordinates, and Alex had been careful to not touch piece of paper with them written down to leave it looking undisturbed. If Alex could simply avoid saying that he’d revealed the information on the paper his team might be able to use them before whatever they revealed was changed. If the coordinates were a drug production plant and Yassen realized that the coordinates were on their way to the Russian authorities, the plant’s location would be changed before the location was any use.

Alex should change the subject. His attempt would be transparent, but perhaps it would be humored. And it would delay the inevitable pain he was about to face, although at this point Alex needed to know what his punishment would be almost as much as he needed to change the subject. Somehow he imagined he hadn’t scratched the surface of the pain Yassen could cause him if the man wanted.

“Why did you say I’m 18?” Alex asked.

“They said you were older. They were wrong.”

“You didn’t have to tell them that. I have a life with them. My teammates are going to ask questions.”

“You didn’t have to call them. We all make choices,” Yassen countered.

Yassen still hadn’t asked what Alex had said. Good. It would be easier to leave things out and then deny he had been asked, later when Alex was going to be screaming in whatever ‘interrogation’ style Yassen choose after quiet waiting. “I didn’t tell them anything important.”

“You said we’re in a church.”

So Alex’s team had been honest on their phone call. Fuck. Harris should have made the team lie – Alex was in for a world of pain anyway. “I don’t see any worshippers. Don’t tell me you’re praying whenever I’m not looking.”

“You thought they would track my location?”

Alex allowed his face to look guilty.  He had hoped. The way Yassen worded it made Alex suspect the phone was set up to be untraceable. “You asked for their email?”

“Your team offered money in return for you.” Yassen affirmed.

 Somehow Alex suspected that asking for the address was only a distraction for his team. “You’re going to do a ransom drop? Your boss approve that?”

“I apparently don’t tell my boss everything, when it comes to you.”

“Lucky me.”

Yassen looked at his desk, where the phone rested on his laptop. “What else did you say?”

Alex paused. He needed facts that sounded realistic, that he could remember if he was being shoved underwater repeatedly. “We used to be in Moscow. There are kids here. I wanted to know if the other guy you kidnapped made it back. I wasn’t badly hurt. Your men had shot some Russian police.”

Yassen’s gaze sharpened. “You said there were kids here?”

Alex tensed slightly. Molotov would kill him if he knew Alex had not only made a phone call for help, but also mentioned his children. “Seemed relevant, if the government was going to break in again. I don’t want his son getting shot.”

Yassen’s gaze flickered. “I am relatively certain the government is aware of my boss’s family.”

“Well maybe they aren’t,” Alex objected. “It’s not Abhi’s fault that his dad is… _his_ dad.”

The rattle shiv Alex had spent so long clinging to was thrown casually into the unlit fireplace. Soon the painted wood would be just another piece of kindling. “Anything else?”

“It wasn’t a long call. And Brandon, the other guy you kidnapped, he’s fine. In case you were wondering.”

Yassen slowly paced across the room to his desk. “When did you wake up?”

“I don’t know. After you left.” Alex glowered. “Just because I stayed up half the night crying doesn’t mean I’ll sleep the rest of the day too.”

“Yet I had hoped,” Yassen said dryly.

A minute passed in quiet interrogation, Alex counting seconds in his head for a distraction. Eventually he couldn’t take it. “Can you just get on with it?” he bit out.

Yassen half smirked. “Stay there.”

Now it was time. There would be some punishment. Alex fidgeted with the edge of a blanket while he watched the assassin dig into a pile of files on the floor and arrange them on his desk. Alex had asked yesterday and been told they were translation practice – he desperately hoped they were not the important papers, and that he’d looked them over during his phone call. He wouldn’t get another opportunity. Then again, Alex wouldn’t have been able to keep the papers the exact same way in such a hurry, and Yassen would know for a fact that he’d been digging around in them. Not to mention Yassen had said they were Arabic translations yesterday, and Alex couldn’t imagine trying to describe on the phone what the Arabic letters looked like – a line with a slight upward direction, a slant back down, two dots perpendicular to each other over a line – no, from what Alex knew of Arabic script, it was nothing similar to English.

Yassen paused before he pulled out the translations he had been working on. “Your teammates are fond of you.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Why was he prolonging this? Was he going to leave Alex alone for a while to sweat it out before the punishment came?

“You could let them know more about you. More than you like football.”

“What should I say? The stuff I’m not allowed to because of the Official Secrets Act?” Alex thought of the things he had tried to share with a counselor once, before quickly realizing how ill prepared she was in his circumstances. Or maybe Alex was just bad at accepting help. “Should I say that my life is so fucked that my parents died when I was a couple months old when my godfather put a bomb on their plane? My uncle got killed by a contract killer? That the only good advice I got came from contract killer, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t have a choice, and then in a couple of months he gave me the complete opposite advice? I don’t want to explain my family situation because then I’d have to explain why I don’t have a real family, and half of that is a secret. I am _legally_ not allowed to say more about my life.”

The pair looked at each other, one bitter, the other calm. Finally, Alex admitted, “You’re one of the only people who has half of an idea, and you caused half of it with the spectacular advice to go find SCORPIA.”

Yassen turned away. Alex couldn’t tell if it was an admission of guilt or a lack of anything to say. Somehow it didn’t feel like a denial. Good. Yassen might not feel guilt, per se, about sending Alex to Rothman, but at least he wasn’t denying his part in Alex’s misadventures.

“You’re not going to tell Molotov that I called my team.” Alex said quietly. He’d known from the moment Henchman number one had left the room. Yassen had to know too. Alex would live another day.

“I’m not sure what it would help.” Yassen replied with finality.

Alex frowned. Were they done? When was Alex getting banged into a wall or shot in the leg? It wasn’t smart, but he needed to continue this. “You should really keep track of your cell phones. That was how I discovered Damian Cray’s number.”

 “Yes, I’ll have to be more careful,” Yassen agreed, but there was something in the way he said it that made Alex suddenly start with surprise, and realization. The laptop had been left open on the desk. It had a password, and one that Alex would have no idea how to crack. So it was secure enough. The notes on the side had no reason though. If it was something secure, why would Yassen leave it out? Alex clearly knew some Russian, Yassen had been distracting Alex with it recently. And the cellphone left alone.

Yassen smiled at Alex’s expression, and turned to his translations.

Alex sat back and wondered how long Yassen had planned for him to escape.

\---AR---

“We can help. We have a Russian speaker, and we know how Alex thinks. Give us a laptop and let us look for old churches in three hours of Moscow – even if we don’t find it we can narrow down the results.”

The first representative of the Russian government frowned. “You betrayed our trust. We put you in nice hotel, in safe place, and allow contact with the American government. Then you stole the phone, and lie to borrow our phones. The situation with the mafia is delicate. You place our men in danger.”

D.C. grimaced. “That’s true, and we apologize. But we can work together – we have information that can help!”

“That’s right,” Harris agreed. “We found out where Alex is being held. We know that there are children with him – civilians who need to be protected. He knows Gregorovich. From inside this room we found out more about where he is than you discovered in a week.”

“Arrogance!” The second representative snapped. “We found them once, and we have sent men to open negotiations for your agent. We know everything you know, we heard it all.”

The discussion was dragging on hours after the Russians had invaded the hotel room. After Alex’s phone call had ended, two silent FSB officers entered the room and began tearing it apart. Alex’s phone was quickly discovered. Every possession in the room was taken out to be inspected again by FSB agents. And now two agents of the government were here, dressing down he men. Possibly the team was not far from being brought to a much _smaller_ space to spend their confinement.

Ayad glanced around. Much of the team was sitting dejected against the far wall. Harris and DC continued their attempts to placate the Russians into allowing the team to help the rescue missions.

Brandon emerged from the restroom, caught Ayad’s attention, and gestured towards a space on the far wall. Ayad walked to meet him.

 “You alright?” Ayad asked in a low tone.

“No,” Brandon admitted, in a matched tone. “I’m worried.” Brandon’s face contorted for a minute. “I think he was screaming in the car, when I left him. I should have done something.”

Ayad looked over helplessly. Brandon took a ragged breath. “He stole the phone of an assassin with a grudge against his father to make a phone call. Then he got caught. This,” he gestured widely with his hands, “this whole thing could be pointless. Alex might not even be alive.”

Ayad fervently shook his head. “He’s alive. If we don’t know anything else, we know that. They have the Russian special ops on their tale, and according to Alex they’re shooting Russian police officers. Maybe they’re making a point, maybe they’re just mad, but anyway Alex is worth more to them alive than dead. As leverage or as a point. If they kill him, it will be public.”

“Maybe it’s just revenge.” Brandon whispered. “Kid’s dad pretends to like Gregorovich then leaves him out to dry.

“Alex had a point.”

Ayad and Brandon looked around, startled. How much had Harris heard? “What do you mean?” Ayad asked.

Harris made a face. “Alex had been with Gregorovich a week now, almost. If Gregorovich wanted to hurt him he could have. And maybe he has, but not seriously. Alex sounded almost fine. He said ‘Yassen wants me to go away.’” Ayad and Brandon waited, sure Harris would expand. He did. “They’re on a first name basis. Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. He’s a valuable hostage, or Gregorovich isn’t as mad at his dad as we thought. ‘Wants me to go away’ sounds more like an annoyed relative than a pissed killer, to me.”

“But why does he think Alex is 18?”

“That’s been bothering me too,” Ayad admitted. “There’s no reason to lie about it, and Gregorovich wasn’t trying to use his age for any reason. It would have helped us to say Alex was younger than he was, if Gregorovich doesn’t kill kids, so maybe Alex lied, but if Gregorovich met him years ago then Alex wouldn’t be able to lie because he would have seen how old Alex was the first time they met.”

“Maybe Alex lied the first time they met?” Harris said. “If Gregorovich doesn’t kill kids, 14 or 15 would have been better than 16 or 17.”

“Sixteen and fourteen is a big age difference,” Ayad insisted.

“Not necessarily,” Harris dismissed. “Especially if Alex looks young already. Which he does. He might be able to pass as 18 now. So, he said he was younger first time they met, and Gregorovich believed him. Or Gregorovich knew this guy who’d trained him had a kid and got the dates wrong. I think Gregorovich was trying to mess with us, personally.”

“Or,” Brandon said, “Alex is 18.”

“So our boss let a 16 year old work for him two years ago? There’s no way. Alex wouldn’t have the experience he needed. Alex signed up for the military as soon as he was able, 16 in Britain, and then he showed potential and applied with our firm.  It’s the only way he was old enough to be signed.”

Ayad and Brandon exchanged uneasy looks. “Alright,” Ayad said. “One of those. We get it out of him when he comes back though. I don’t want to wonder about it any longer.”

Brandon didn’t say anything. Harris wandered away, and Ayad followed, the two wondering what Gregorovich was doing to the poor kid now. Brandon was lost in other thoughts. How young his sister was, at 18, going off to her first year of college at Ohio University. How young Alex looked at a bar in Louisiana one night, when some women from a nearby tax office had wandered over, looking to score with the men who had deescalated an almost violent encounter earlier in the evening. How scared Alex had seemed, in the backseat of the car when Brandon had left him. Alex _knew_ the killer, knew him well enough to chase after him on his own for some reckless reason. Gregorovich _knew_ Alex, had known his father. And ultimately, after all the friendly banter the kid gave on the field, how well could any of the men say they knew Alex?

What if Gregorovich was right?

\--AR--

A loud rap on the door captured Alex’s attention. Not that grabbing his attention was difficult – if Alex was learning anything from this hack job calling itself a Steve Job biography, it was that Steve Jobs was as much an egotist as half the madmen Alex had run against in his life.

“Gregorovich,” Molotov spoke as he entered. The gangster’s eyes skipped past the beds to the man at the desk. “I need your boy.”

Yassen tilted his head towards the middle bed. Alex, stretched out on his stomach with the biography on his pillow, stiffened.

It took a second for Molotov’s expression to darken. “Having a vacation, are we? Or no, perhaps you have just joined a book club?”

When Alex failed to respond, the mobster turned to his second. “This is your idea?”

“Him reading quietly and leaving me to my work?” Yassen’s eyes flickered between the spy and his tormentor. “Yes.”

“You’ve become sentimental.” Molotov took a step towards Alex. He was rewarded with a minute flinch. “Two days with this mewling brat who resembles your trainer, and you let him get away with playing around.”

“Whatever you tell me to do will be done.” Short, the sentiment implied, of murder or serious mutilation.

“I’d rather you not entertain him!” Molotov snapped. “I’m not running a crèche.”

“I don’t like the book, if it helps, sir.” Alex said.

Molotov took another step towards the boy. Alex met Yassen’s gaze and quickly dropped it.

“We can get creative if you like,” Yassen said.

Molotov snorted. “Later. Now I need a phone number.” Molotov approached Alex. “If I decide to trade you back to MI6, I’ll need a contact. Someone who will pick up the phone for you.” He thrust a pad of paper onto the bed.

 “Do you have a pen?”

Taking the offered ballpoint, Alex dashed the number onto the notepad. Molotov turned as soon as his items were returned.

Alex held himself stiff, pretending to read the book in his hands, as his tormentor left the room. Alex relaxed. “He should choke on his vodka.”

After waiting for a minute for a response, Alex frowned. He tapped the book against the headrest. “Why are you reading this? It’s garbage.”

“I have a meeting with someone who thinks himself an influencer as prominent as Steve Jobs, except in the former Soviet block.”

Alex considered. Someone he would know? Probably not, if Yassen felt safe enough to mention it to him. Or the meeting was soon. He filed the information away. Not that Alex was planning on tracking Yassen down again, once he escaped. If he could get to the locations on the sheet of paper himself to see the drug operations, that would be enough for a month’s work.

“Are you finally finding your survival instincts?” Yassen questioned.

“Ha.” Alex leaned against the headboard. “My arm already hurts from not being _respectful_ enough for you. I didn’t want to find out what it felt like to have my arm forced over an open flame.”

“Hmm.”

The spy bent his book in his hands. “Or be tied up and whipped, or whatever else you come up with for your boss.”

“My job description covers imagination.” Yassen agreed.

“Jesus.” Moodily, Alex immersed himself again in his story.

Reading wasn’t working. Alex shook his head. He couldn’t concentrate. On this book or anything outside of here. All he could think about was letting down Ian and Jack for the first time, about the drug operation in Russia that was continuing entirely because of Alex’s mistake in trying to get a one on one with Yassen. Alex had let down his team, had ignored his training from Harris, had ignored common sense on every turn. His stomach squirmed. He could have been dead twenty ways by now, in a country thousands of miles from home. His one semi-ally in this mess was his enemy, and the enemy of his enemy, the Russian government, was not proving an incredibly useful friend.

“My dad wouldn’t have been happy with you,” Alex said, looking with such interest at an open page it was obvious he wasn’t reading.

“That would be the flipside of his pride in you,” Yassen acquiesced. “Unfortunately for us both, I am the one he can claim some credit for training.”

Alex rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “How is it unfortunate for you? You wanted someone eviler?”

“I would prefer John had a chance to raise you.”

Furrowing his brow, Alex rolled onto an elbow. “Why?”

“He deserved you. You deserved him.” Yassen said simply. He paused to consider their conversation. “To bring us back to your point, however, the opinion of a long dead man doesn’t interest me.”

“Then why am I alive?”

“Your startling sense of self-preservation?” Yassen stood and rolled his shoulders. “Human attachment to more than one person?”

Alex bit his lip, then replied. “I wouldn’t care if someone burst in and shot you now.”

“Perhaps you should. No one else here would let you off so lightly, after the damage caused by your capture.”

Alex glared. “You just said you’d beat me bloody if asked.” He paused, and then shifted with unease. “Your boss hates me. Why didn’t he?”

Yassen smiled. “I am valuable enough as an employee for him to care about my preferences. Unhappy employees demand larger bonuses.” He made his way to the first bed and sat down across from Alex. The Russian reached over the gap between bunks and lightly tapped the boy’s burnt wrist.

“Oh good. The worst person I know has a human attachment to me, but at least he’s a _valuable employee_.” Alex replied sarcastically. He let Yassen’s hand pull his wrist closer to the man for examination. Cool fingers lightly traced his burn.

“You had bandages on this a few hours ago.”

Alex shrugged. “Itched. I pulled them off.”

Yassen sighed and retrieved a first aid kit from his bag.

Hours later Steve Job’s biography lay abandoned on a bedside table between two single beds, under a dirty plate. Light from the restroom and a light on the desk left shadows across the room. Yassen hadn’t heard movement from Alex’s direction in more than half an hour and didn’t pay much mind when sheets rustled from the bed.  Alex had spent much of the last few hours alternating between shifting in bed and pacing between the bunks. It didn’t matter, so long as he kept their volatile peace.

When Alex spoke, it was low. “Hey.”

He glanced at the bunk. The little spy watched him.

Alex cleared his throat. “Can we talk?”

They had nothing to talk about. Yassen had decided already what path he would prefer to take to end this weeklong journey into his past mistakes. Still, his translations were nearly complete. Yassen would finish them before bed tonight even with a distraction now. Tomorrow he could move onto a few videos spoken in the Arabic dialect he needed to practice. Assuming, of course, that his boss or his captive did not change his plans.

Yassen walked to Alex.

The boy paused. “I just wanted to say, um,” he swallowed. “I would probably care if someone burst in and shot you.” He glared. “Probably.”

Yassen raised an eyebrow. “How nice of you. But I mentioned that I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.” He glanced at the door to the restroom. “You already brushed your teeth, yes?” Alex nodded, chewing on his lip. “Then go to sleep.”

At Alex’s hesitation, Yassen waved at the bed. “Lay down. Close your eyes. Sleep.”

Alex did neither. “Are you busy?” His eyes were furrowed. Was he in pain? More than the dull aches from his beating he’d been complaining of earlier before he’d been distracted by the book?

“Why?”

Alex stared at the floor. “I wanted to ask a favor.” Silence met his words.

“Ask,” Yassen prompted, as it became clear Alex was stuck in his mind. Still the boy hesitated. “Ask or sleep.”

“Can you tell me about my dad?” Alex blurted.

Yassen froze.

Looking as if he instantly regretted his words, Alex added, “It’s ok, I’ll-”

“Quiet.”

Alex closed his mouth.

Yassen sat on the bed opposite. He thought for a moment. Alex barely drew breath. “You won’t interrupt.” Alex nodded.

“Have you been to Poland?”

 Alex shook his head.

“John was almost fluent in Polish. We went there when I was only a bit older than you.”

Two countries later, Yassen stopped. Alex, laying quietly on his back, rolled over. “I’m still awake.”

Yassen exhaled. “Yes.” He stood. “And now it’s time for you to sleep.”

Alex shot up. “I didn’t interrupt!”

“I’m done.” Turning, Yassen moved to leave the beds. Alex tumbled out of his bed, blocking the way.

“I,” Alex stammered, looking as lost at 18 as he had been four years ago. Yassen held back his desire to slap the boy out of his way.

“Bed. Now.”

Alex stalled, his eyes opened wide, hands in the air. Fine. Yassen kicked Alex’s right ankle. Alex’s arms dropped in surprise, and Yassen’s hands found Alex’s shoulder, forcing the struggling boy back onto the middle bed. Alex’s arms braced against the bed, and Yassen released a shoulder to thread a hand into a head full of blond hair. He ignored the hurt gasp. Harshly Yassen pulled Alex across his bed until his head was smothered by his pillow.

Yassen pressed Alex down into the mattress. The boy flinched but didn’t resist. “Those are the memories that don’t involve violence and bloodshed, and that I am willing to share. You’re welcome.” Alex’s breaths rattled against his bedsheets. “Stay.” Yassen released his hands. Alex grabbed at his sheets and pushed himself off his stomach. He assessed the room, saw the gun on Yassen’s desk, and paled. The fight or flight response, if it had been there to begin with, fled.

“Sorry,” Alex mumbled. He pulled the covers over himself, averting eye contact.

Anger coiled in his stomach. The arrogance of assuming he could take memories that did not belong to him – that he had a right to demand more than one was willing to share. As if he had a right to those moments in the first place.

 _No. Calm down._ Yassen counted 10 to 1 in five languages in his head, allowing long ago words from John to once again reach him. _Striking in anger is almost always a mistake._ He sighed. Retreated to his seat from moments ago.

“That wasn’t your fault.” It wasn’t quite an apology. Yet it had the intended effect. Alex rolled to face him.

The Russian considered. “These are not…the easiest memories to relive.”

One side of Alex’s mouth twitched. “Mhm. You mean like owing your life to the person who killed the man who raised you?”

“Yes,” Yassen conceded with a sad smile. “Something like that.” He shook his head and reached to put a hand next to Alex. “You are someone that your father would be proud of. The people who raised you were proud of you. That is no small feat.”

Alex blinked a few times, and then smiled impishly. “Neither is saving the world, but I did it 7 or 8 times before I was 15.”

Yassen shook his head. _John_ _’_ _s son._ He smiled for a second. “And now you’re old. Sleep.”


	16. Intervention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

 

"The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by." --Sebastian Junger

“We need to talk to your boss.” Harris had opened with those words to the Russian Suit guarding their door four hours ago, and the dividends were finally paying off. After pestering for two hours and claiming that they had new information that the Russians hadn’t already overheard from bugging the room, the team had a sit down with one of the men in charge, Agent Pavlovski. He was the man who had overseen the operation to shut down the mobster’s house back in St. Petersburg. And, Harris inferred, he was the man facing the penalties for how poorly that operation had gone. No wonder he was willing to chance a meeting with the American team who had infiltrated his country.

Harris opened the meeting with blunt words. “I’ll be brief, Mr. Pavlovski. Two of my men think the only thing I can do to help get my agent back is hope and pray. But I disagree. I think I can help you recover this situation, if you’re willing to work a deal.”

“A deal.” The Russian smiled sourly. “Your team sneaks ten American men into my country, leaving us a mess to handle, and now you want to cut a deal. Haven’t we already cut a deal, by leaving you in a hotel instead of a prison, and shipping your one severely injured man back home as a gesture of goodwill?”

“In our defense, we didn’t sneak into your country. We bought plane tickets and came with legitimate visas over the course of three days.”

“You immediately broke those visas by attempting illegal military measures against a Russian countryman. Yes, that countryman is breaking the law, and it is my intent to see Yassen Gregorovich brought to justice, and his boss, but it was not your place to attempt such an action.”

“Yassen Gregorovich has an INTERPOL warrant for his arrest.”

“Which INTERPOL Moscow could handle, if it was a priority. Since coming to this country, and until you arrived, the man was not presenting such a bother as he is now. It’s strange how this happens.”

Brandon eyed Harris warily. “Sir, I apologize, I think we are taking a detour. We want to make a deal with you that would benefit both of our countries. We know our missing agent, and some of us are willing to place ourselves back into danger to try and rescue him. Let us help. The more of our men you can use, the less danger you’ll be placing Russian troops into. If there are any more shootouts, it would be us in danger instead of you.”

Pavlovski grimaced. “And now you are calling me and my men cowards.”

“We know from firsthand experience that you are not,” Harris disagreed. “But as you said, this is our mess. We should clean it up.”

The Russian seemed to consider this. “You said some of your men were willing to search for your agent. What about the rest?”

“Send them home. You’ll never be bothered by them again, and we fully accept that you will revoke any future visas our men may attempt, and that we are not to step foot into Russian territories without an explicit invitation from government officials.”

One of the two aids that had followed Pavlovski into the hotel room for the meeting leaned forward and said something quietly in Russian. Pavlovski frowned, and considered the words.

“Alright. We’ll work a deal with your government for immunity for this intrusion into the Russian Federation. But this deal will only be followed if some of you are willing to do as you say – go after your man.” Pavlovski stood. “I will fetch some contractors to work out the exact terms with your boss. But rest assured—for as long as I live, you and your men will never be allowed in this country again.”

Harris stood as well. “We completely understand.”

DC waited until the Russian Suits had cleared the room before he brought up his concern. “So we think Alex used to work for MI6, yeah? That was what Ayad and Brandon agreed on?” He looked to the two men for agreement. “Yes? Because that would make sense. Do you all want to know what that mini-Suit just told the main man a moment ago? He said, and this isn’t verbatim because my Russian’s turned shit over the past three years, but roughly it went ‘Sir, we already gave permission to the English’.”

“What does that mean, permission to the English?” James asked.

“Exactly what it sound like, I reckon,” Lowery said quietly. “MI6 used to hire Alex, and now he’s missing, and they’re worried about the intel he has and asked to send a team to retrieve him.”

“There’s no way the Russians let a team of MI6 agents into their country. Maybe one agent or two, but not a team,” Ayad said with certainty.  

“That can’t be bad news, though,” Brandon said. “The more the merrier.”

“Unless that agent screws up and gets them both shot.”

Harris sighed. “I hope not. Well, I’ll go beg for a phone again, and call Hyde about this deal we might have worked out. It’s almost morning there, so hopefully he won’t be too grumpy about how early we’re putting him to work.” Harris headed to the door of the hotel suite, a determined look on his face.

“The facts,” DC said, drawing the rest of the group besides Harris together. “Yassen Gregorovich contacted us and said he’d be in touch for a ransom within 48 hours. We still have time for that line of contact to be reopened. Hyde has a man monitoring the email we gave him.”

“It’s a bluff,” Brandon said, feeling nearly certain he was correct. “He wanted to stall us. Alex wasn’t supposed to reach out to us, and when he did Gregorovich wanted to ensure that we didn’t panic. He wanted us to think Alex still had a chance of being kept alive, and us to wait patiently. This is the same as when he told me he’d release Alex in a day. He didn’t, and Alex is still in danger.”

“He’s not going to kill Alex,” Ayad reassured the group. “Alex is too valuable to the mafia at this point. The head abandoned his home because the Russian forces went after Alex, and now Alex is a bargaining chip the mafia can use to try and end this mess.”

“Alex said policemen were shot in front of him, like a circus show. The mafia is getting serious, if that’s the case. This might be a war.”

“Then they’ll kill him to make a point,” DC said, horrified.

“I don’t think so,” Brandon said, chewing over a theory in his head. It sounded ridiculous though. A child agent? Alex working for MI6 at 14? This was the sort of thing children’s books were made of, and Brandon wasn’t about to get laughed out of the unit for proposing the idea. But it made sense, didn’t it? And most importantly, it would keep Alex alive just long enough for a rescue. After all, a former child spy had to be the most useful hostage if you were going up against a government.

\---AR---

“We’ve reached a deal,” Harris announced, exhausted. “We’ve been on the phones for most of the past 5 hours, obviously, but it’s finally over. Hyde just signed on behalf of the company, and he’s faxing the forms over now.”

The assembled men stood around, waiting for further details. “The Russians bought us all tickets – nice ones, I’ll add – going home. Tonight. Anyone who wants one can leave tonight, no questions asked. Kid got himself into this mess, and I’m not going to pressure anyone who’s worried about going against he mafia to go against the mafia. It’s a valid fear, I’ll warrant. Jackson, it goes without saying that you’re taking the ticket home.” Harris gave a pointed glance Jackson’s injured shoulder.

“For those who want to stay, it’s been confirmed that we have some company from across the ocean. Or on this side of the ocean, I can say now. An MI6 agent named Daniels crossed into Russian airspace two hours ago. Apparently, MI6 has some idea of where the kid is, and they’re sending GPS coordinates with another agent, whose en route now.”

“Why not just send them over fax or email like a reasonable person?” Lowery asked.

“I’m guessing they want the speed advantage. They don’t trust the Russians not to barge in and fumble the whole operation, and looking at the mess we’ve seen so far, maybe they’re right not too.”

“Or maybe their agent has orders to eliminate potential problems, and that includes Alex, if necessary,” Brandon said.

“Wait, doesn’t that sound a little extreme?” Ayad asked. “Whatever Alex was doing with MI6, it was a few years ago, and they let him go after it.”

Brandon shook his head, and then exhaled loudly. “OK, I’ll say it. I think Alex is 18. I think MI6 is sending a man, women, or men into this country not because of secrets he has, but because he is the secret.”

DC scoffed.

Brandon shook his head. He was certain of this theory now. “He was used as a kid, as incredibly as that sounds. I think Gregorovich knows the truth about how old Alex is, and he knows how valuable he is going to be in blackmailing secret service agencies, and that’s why he keeps bluffing about letting Alex go. He’s not going to let Alex go because he’s valuable, and if we don’t rescue Alex then he’s going to be in for a world of pain, and eventually death, if the agencies don’t make a deal with the mafia. I can’t let that happen to him. He’s a good kid. Yeah, I don’t really want to go against the Russian mafia. I have a sister at home that depends on me since our parents are, well, as I’ve mentioned, violent alcoholic dicks. But I can’t leave Alex hanging.”

Ayad frowned. “I don’t agree, but that’s why I’m staying. I need to know the truth, and I’m going to rescue Pleasure so I can wrangle his life story out of him with my bare hands.”

Harris signed. “Well, I think we can definitely confirm our assumption that Alex was former MI6, but I agree with Ayad that the child soldier bit is a stretch.”

“Are you staying?” DC asked.

“I don’t know.” Harris shrugged. “I honestly don’t. We have another few hours to decide, and I might take until the last second. This unit is like a brotherhood to me, and I don’t want to leave any man behind. But I also don’t want to leave my family behind.”

“I can’t do it,” DC said. “I’m sorry, but no. This is politics of the worst kind. The longer I stay in Russia, the longer I worry I’m going to end up in a Russian prison island. This country is dangerous for special ops, and I regret coming here. I’m sorry for Alex, and godspeed to everyone staying, but I’m going home.”

Sylvester nodded. “I am too. I want to know about Alex, but I doubt I can do anything more than the armed men involved in Russian special forces, with the extra intel they have. We’ve been sitting here gathering pet theories about Alex, but the truth is that’s all they are. Pet theories. Even if they were right, Alex couldn’t tell us. He’ll have signed the Official Secrets Act, or Patriots Act, or whatever they call the thing in Britain.”

“It’s your decision,” Harris said. He signed heavily. “Although I can’t agree with you more, DC. I regret coming here. And I’m willing to bet Alex does even more than us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a half-chapter, if I'm being honest. But it was getting too confusing jumping between perspectives. I needed some straight catch up time to establish that these events are happening before the next chapter, and concurrent to the events of chapter 15. 
> 
> Next chapter: The rising action begins to end as Yassen leaves window of opportunity for Alex's escapes. 
> 
> Also, rereading some of this fic, it got much darker than I meant it to. I may be reediting the fic before I finish it, and deleting some rougher edges.
> 
> For anyone reading this for the torture of child spies, though (hopefully no one exclusively for that?)- I've been writing another Alex-based fic that just got dark. So check that out.


	17. Escape

_“_ _It is easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop._ _”_ _–_ _John Le Carr_ _é_

Alex was almost certain he was interpreting the signs correctly. The clues were laid out like a trail in a forest at night – hard to see, but there, once considered.

Clue one: an unattended phone. Alex could have called anyone with that phone. True, there had been a guard in place, but that led to clue two. Yassen claimed he left the one guard with Alex because the guard would leave him alone. It was true that another mafia man might have felt the cruel impulse to bother Alex when guarding him, and Efram had not. But it was also true that another mafia member could have been a more competent guard. Efram had folded easily under Alex’s attack.

Clue 3. A list of coordinates stuck to a laptop, in the same room as an unattended cell phone. Yassen was far from incompetent at his job, and his job required secrecy, guarding intelligence, and holding hostages in secure locations.

Yassen wanted Alex to escape. And to stop the production of this drug.

Why?

He had some sort of moral code. Yassen valued Alex’s life. He had said as much. He could have shot Brandon but let him go – perhaps because the man didn’t bother him. Yassen had tried to prevent Abhi from seeing the unnecessary bloodshed the other day.

All of these pieces of evidence were weak evidences of a moral code when stacked against Yassen’s greater crimes – shooting a man on Sayle’s dock for dropping the virus, putting Alex in the ring with a bull, working for Damien Cray, working for SCORPIA, working for the Russian mafia. Still, they did prove that some semblance of humanity lingered. If given a choice, Yassen wouldn’t shoot a child. And Cray had said that Yassen would be hailed as a hero in Russia for destroying the poppy fields that led to drug production around the world.

So maybe Yassen actually didn’t enjoy drugs. Maybe he had chosen to take the job with Cray. Alex had never made it far enough up the SCORPIA ladder during his brief time with them to figure out how jobs were assigned. Would Yassen have a choice in his jobs with SCORPIA?

If he did, perhaps the shred of morality he had allowed him to subtly work against drug production. Perhaps he was allowing Alex to attempt an escape because it would make Yassen’s conscience lighter.

Fat chance.

Back to square one. Yassen had only a few morals, which stacked up poorly compared to the many general human morals he did not care about. He had cared about Alex’s dad, and now Alex. Alex did have morals. Alex was opposed to drug production and the inevitable destruction drugs left behind.

Perhaps this wasn’t about morals, but motivation? Alex had to admit he had not been particularly good at attempting to escape the past few days. Admittedly the situation had seemed hopeless. Still, he could have tried to escape. What he’d done in comparison was plan, plot, and despair.

Yassen knew Alex well enough to know that if he thought he had a chance of stopping a crime, he would. Yassen left easy to access coordinates near Alex, and left him nearly alone. Alex would escape and Yassen would be free of the one problem that would trouble his conscience—keeping Alex alive.

Shifting up on the bed into a sitting position, Alex glanced at the overcast sky through the window. He could hear the shower going from the restroom.

Should he say anything to Yassen when he came out? Assassin or not, he had kept Alex alive for the past week. He had refused to shoot him at what was almost the cost of his own life four years ago.

Alex didn’t intend to see Yassen again after today. He was leaving before tonight, whatever the cost. Yassen was setting it up for him. Alex intended to take advantage of what he was given.

 “I’m leaving.”

Of course Yassen would know Alex was awake, even though Alex hadn’t moved from his sleeping position yet. Yawning, Alex sat up. “What?”

“I’m leaving.” Yassen repeated. His tone was final. Alex felt as if his suspicions were being confirmed. Yassen didn’t expect to come back to see him.

“Ok,” Alex said. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else.” Yassen looked Alex straight in the eye. “My boss and I are meeting some associates. We will be at least thirty minutes away.”

That was definitely a message.

Yassen paused to pack his computer into a small laptop bag. “Did you get answers to all of your questions?”

Impulsively, Alex asked, “What did you do? Between your parents dying and joining SCORPIA?”

Yassen raised an eyebrow.

“I know you weren’t playing Russian Roulette for five years. The odds aren’t that in your favor.”

“Only twice. Once it was even my choice.”

Alex stared. The question he considered asking, _are you an idiot_ , died immediately in his head. It wasn’t the time to be sassy. Yassen was genuinely offering answers to questions, freely. Did he have any more? Certainly not many that could easily be answered.

Taking the pause as a request to elaborate, Yassen shook his head. “Enough about my youth. After 14 it was not pleasant.”

“Well we have that in common,” Alex bit out. Immediately he regretted the words. The Russian didn’t look impacted, but Alex had no desire for their last meeting to be tinged with sarcasm. Their time together deserved a more fitting close. “I’m sorry about your parents, and that my dad wasn’t who you thought he was.”

“It was nothing to do with you,” Yassen dismissed.

Alex bit his lip. “I’m sorry you’re not a good person.” The words should have been an accusation, but they weren’t.  

“That is also nothing to do with you,” Yassen said, with evident amusement.

Alex watched with mixed emotions as the assassin swung the laptop bag over his shoulder and walked to the door.

“Stay safe, Alex,” Yassen said.

“You too,” Alex said before the words registered.

Yassen nodded and held the door open. One of Molotov’s nameless grunts walked inside and exchanged a quiet greeting in Russian.

Without a backwards glance, Yassen left.

The nameless guard entered the room.

“Hi,” Alex said. The guard glared. “Care if I set up a fire? It’s a bit cold in here?”

Odds indicated that the guard didn’t understand him, and when Alex moved to the fireplace the guard looked upset, and gestured back to the bed.

“Hey, relax,” Alex said, showing both hands. “I’m not up to anything, cross my heart.”

It was cold in the room, and the guard, with some shown reluctance, allowed Alex to build a fire.

“Can I get a light?” Alex asked. He pointed at the lighter by the window, to aid comprehension. When the guard shrugged, Alex

The fire flickered to life, as Alex sat and watched it grow. His idea from two nights ago sat strong in his mind.

Of all the painful deaths Alex had previously faced, fire wasn’t even in the top ten. People tended to expire from smoke inhalation instead of burns. The pain could be worse. Still, Alex had the positive desire to not die anytime this year, which made this plot all the riskier.

Yassen had taken the paper with the coordinates written on it off the computer earlier. Alex had watched him do it. Alex walked to the desk and saw the paper there, in the middle of the desk. He would need to get that.

Alex nearly laughed when he saw what was next to the paper.

Yassen’s watch.

Convenient.

 “Sit.”

“Alright, alright, I’m not doing anything,” Alex said, putting his hands in the air in mock surrender. He went back to a bed and sat down. The time was almost a quarter to 9, if the watch was accurate. Five minutes to start a fire, a few minutes more maybe, and Alex had maybe twenty five minutes until Yassen and his boss were at the farthest distance away they would get to.

Alex needed to steal the information on drug production, procure a car, and go there. What had his team said? Alex had to get to Nizhny Novgorod.

“I’m cold,” Alex said to no one in particular. The guard’s eyes stayed on him as he walked to the bed and grabbed a blanket. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything rash,” Alex muttered. He walked back to the fire. “I thought about it.”

And he tossed half the blanket into the fire.

The guard took a moment to respond, stunned expression showing that he hadn’t expected this. The guard then let loose a string of angry curse words and rushed to pull the blanket out of the fireplace. Alex picked up the fire poker and swung at the man.

The guard dropped. Alex fell onto him, looking for the gun that would be there. It was hidden in a side holster.

And now Alex had a gun.

No one was outside the room. Yet. When the fire began to spread and smoke began to spread, someone would come.

Alex looked at the blanket. The fire was creeping slowly along the blanket to the floor. This was slower than Alex had hoped. He needed a distraction, soon, if he was going to concentrate the guards wherever he wasn’t.

Fires spread with air. And with paper. Alex looked to the duffel where Yassen kept his stuff. Quickly he opened it and pulled out one of the books in a foreign language the man had been reading earlier. He pulled several pages out, crumpled them, and threw them on the fire. As the kindling helped the fire catch, Alex began to fan the flames with a book. Soon the flames were on the floor and slowly spreading. Alex put the book on the floor and kicked it to the flames.

Halfway to be petty, and halfway for efficiency, Alex grabbed the rest of the books from the duffel and kicked them to the fire.

Alex went to the door and peeked out. No one was there. He could smell smoke though. If there was a fire detector, soon the rest of the building would be in uproar, and if not at least someone would smell the smoke soon.

Grabbing the watch and the papers in his left hand, and holding the gun in his right, Alex left the room.

Minutes later and a hallway down Alex heard shouts. His Russian was limited to a few words and an alphabet, but Alex had a good idea that he was learning the word for ‘fire’.

Alex ducked into an empty broom closet and closed the door. He listened carefully with his ear pressed against the door. Men were running and shouting.

Would they call Molotov right away? Would they wait? Alex was counting seven minutes since his official ‘escape’ by knocking the guard out. In a worst-case scenario there was 20 minutes left until Yassen was here. And if he was here, he would do his job.

A long time ago Yassen had said he would never hurt Alex, but then he’d put him in an area with a live bull. So he lied or he expected Alex to do what he did best—survive.

Well, Alex planned to keep surviving. And he would do it on his own even if he’d grown used to the backup of a team.

Guards were patrolling now, they had noticed the flames. Where would they not go?

Alex recalled a memory. On a ship, guards looking for him, and the certainty that the guards would search every room – except one. No one wanted to mess with the bosses living quarters. It worked with Major Yu, it would work here.

Where was Molotov’s private residence?

It was instinct that made Alex find the stairs and go up them. He opened every door in the hallway, conscious of the fact that men were looking for him right now.

The third door was right. Alex saw children’s shoes inside the doorway, as well as a pair of high heeled winter boots.

_The children. Fuck._

“Hello?” A woman’s sweet voice called down the hall. “Honey? Are you back?’

“папа?”

_Dad._

Alex gritted his teeth and walked into the room.

“You!” Molotova jumped out of her chair. The nanny looked up from one of the two toddlers next to her on the couch, and Abhi looked up from a kid’s electronic toy.

“I need to leave here, and no one will be hurt.” Alex said, aiming at the gun carefully at the woman.

Abhi looked between his mother and Alex, captivated. “Mum?” He didn’t sound afraid, yet.

“If you touch my son, every painful thing my husband and Gregorovich have done to you will seem like a luxury. You will be alive for months before I let you die, and each one of them will be worst than the last.” The woman bit out.

“I don’t hurt people for fun,” Alex said. “Unlike you.”

“I haven’t touched you,” Molotova retorted.

Alex glared. “Your husband has been torturing me for the past few days.”

“You were trouble. My son was injured because of you.”

Alex had heard enough. “Your son is alive because of me!” Every megalomaniac he had met blamed their own family troubles on Alex.

“My son—”

“Shut up.” Alex looked at Abhi and the nanny. “Back up, both of you. Stay in the room. Abhi, listen to me, everything is fine, but I need you to do what I say. Your parents have been doing bad things and I need to make sure they stop.”

“Mom?” Abhi looked scared now.

“Listen to me,” Alex addressed Molotova. “I’m not pointing this at your children because I’m not a monster. But if you shout for your men, if you make any noise, know I’ll shoot you,” Alex said tersely.

“And you said you don’t hurt people,” Molotova sneered, her face distorted into a vicious sneer.

“Desperate times,” Alex responded. “Handle my conditions and I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

“My children leave the room.”

Alex shook his head. That couldn’t happen. Abhi was old enough to run for help, and the nanny was old enough to understand the situation and communicate exactly what was happening. She would want to go with the twins. “They stay.”

“There’s a closet. Let them hide in there.”

Alex glanced in the direction of the door she had pointed out. He inched closer, keeping the gun raised on Molotova. When he was close enough, he shifted to open the door with his left hand. It was a closet inside, with winter jackets, shoes, and a few toys on a shelf.

“Abhi, you and your nanny and siblings need to go in here for a bit.” Alex aimed for a calm tone.

“Mom,” Abhi said.

“Now, please,” Alex said, stress showing through.

He watched as the children and nanny crept into the closet. The silent woman closed the door behind them, and for all purposes Alex and Molotova were alone.

Alex aimed the gun at her heart. His hand was steady, and he made eye contact with the woman who had helped make his life hell for the past week.

“I need a car.”

\---AR---

“You let him walk out?” Molotov asked. Molotova sneered in response, and Yassen had to restrain himself from smiling.

“No, I did not just ‘let him walk out’.” Molotova said. “He held a gun at my head and we walked out together to the car, and then your guards let him go. I told them to shoot the wheels out but that boy sped away before your idiots listened to me.” And then, as Yassen had been sure would happen, Molotova turned to him.

“Your prisoner escaped!”

“I wasn’t with him,” Yassen said. “Or here.”

 “I told you not to let him out of your sight,” Molotova snapped. “What happened to that? This never would have happened if you had been with him.”

“I needed him elsewhere,” Molotov said. “We had business to attend to, and early sales to procure. We sold portions of the drug across central Europe. The money is half in our hands, now we need only to deliver the product.”

“And that is worth the life of your wife and children?”

This tension would need deescalating, Yassen knew. If his boss’s wife became enraged enough, she would hire men to take Alex out. Nowhere the boy went would be safe if he kept insisting on using his own name. A false identity would be safer.

“Alex would have never hurt your children.”

“You want him alive.” Molotov accuses. “And now my child has been held at gunpoint.”

“Yes,” Yassen said simply. “Although I doubt very much that that a gun was ever aimed at your children.” He looked to Molotova for confirmation, and she looked away.

“I’m not staying here. The boy knows where it is and he has the government on his side.” Molotova glared at the room. “The children and I are going somewhere safe.”

Molotov and Molotova locked eyes in a silent battle of wills.

 “Fine,” the husband conceded. “We’ll clear this place out. Gregorovich, make sure the building is secured and then talk to our government contacts. Find out if your pet project is still in Russia. If he is, bring him to me.”  Molotov held up a hand before Yassen could refute the order. “I’ll let him live. But first he is going to learn a lesson. If it takes a week to beat it into him, or a month, or a year, so be it. But he will leave me when _I_ have decided to make a deal for his pitiful life.”

\---AR---

Ben Daniels entered Russia with no problems. An MI6 informant met him at the airport and gave him a gun, with no problems. He rented a car with no problems. He drove that car to a church at approximately the coordinates MI6 had found, with no problems. At the church, the problem began.

It was Sunday at 1:30, perhaps a bit late for a church in session. Ben didn’t expect to walk into an orthodox service and see people in pews singing hymns. He was surprised to see several women in long skirts and covered heads exiting the church at such a late time, all holding overpacked carpet bags.

Ben slipped into the church after they left, looking around the large room clearly meant for holding services. A golden portrait of Jesus frowned down at Ben from above. Ben walked through the

An archway led into a back hallway. Ben walked inside, and began peeking into rooms. There were stairs to a basement, two empty rooms, stairs to a second floor, and a hallway to another set of rooms. All were empty.

Ben took the hallway to the second set of rooms.

There was a sound. Slight, almost imperceptible. Ben pressed himself to the wall and listened carefully. It was in the next room. Slowly, Ben inched towards the door. He pulled his gun out in front of him, and entered the room.

A blond, lithe man looked up.

 “You’re Yassen Gregorovich.”

The man, Gregorovich, did not respond.

Ben pulled his gun, and found another gun pointed at him in return.

Alright, time to defuse the situation. It was talking time, if the Russian would only return the favor.

“I know Alex,” Ben said tentatively.  The Russian tilted his gun slightly, pushing Ben to elaborate. “I don’t think you killed him.” _And if I_ _’_ _m wrong and you have, I_ _’_ _ll kill you._

“No.” Yassen’s lip twitched. “I didn’t kill him, but I am going to stop him.”

“Stop him?”

“He’s going to try and destroy several drug manufacturing compounds in Russia.”

Ben frowned. “Why are you telling me this? I could kill you right now and continue that same mission.”

“Perhaps,” Gregorovich mused.

“And you think you can kill me.” Ben said

A smile flickered across Gregorovich’s face. “Many have tried to kill me. The last who did so is currently on foot across Russia.”

“Alex?”

“You should find him. Stop him, before I need to.”

Gregorovich holstered his gun at his hip, and hoisted a duffel bag over one shoulder. Ben tracked the movement with his eyes, and lowered his gun as well. “If I find him first, blood will be spilled. His, or mine. I won’t kill him, but he won’t stop unless he is physically unable to continue fighting me.” The Russian hesitated. “I’d like to think he wouldn’t kill me either, but that may be incorrect. I would like to leave this situation alive as well.”

“I could solve that problem now,” Ben said.

“Yes, you could try.” Gregorovich smirked. “But it would be better to let me tell you his destinations. The others my boss would send are not willing to spare Alex’s life.”

“You know where he’s going?”

“I left several addresses for him to find. He will be on his way to the closest now.”

Ben’s head spun. None of this was making sense. “Why would you do that?”

“Alex has a habit of turning powerful people against him.”

“I know. I’ve worked with him before.”

“MI6?”

“Yes.”

Gregorovich nodded. “Alex and my boss were having several …painful…disagreements. I thought perhaps Alex could use the push to leave.”

“Painful.” Ben echoed.

“For Alex.”

“What do you mean by that?” Ben had a few guesses, and none boded well for Alex.

Gregorovich shrugged. “The orders my boss were giving relied on torture.”

“Who was your boss giving those orders to?”

Gregorovich raised an eyebrow.

Ben felt his anger rising. “You gave him a push to escape yet you let him be tortured? You won’t kill him but you’ll stop him? What, you care about him, but not enough to not hurt him?”

The corner of Gregorovich’s mouth twitched. “Your government uses children as spies. Perhaps you shouldn’t claim moral authority.”

Ben gritted his teeth. Point Gregorovich. “Where is he?”


End file.
